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GLIMPSES OF THREE COASTS. 



/ 



BY 



HELEN JACKSON (H. H.), 

AUTHOR OF "RAMONA," "a CENTURY OF DISHONOR," " VERSES," " SONNETS 

AND LYRICS," " HETTY'S STRANGE HISTORY," " BITS OF TRAVEL," 

"BITS OF TRAVEL AT HOME," "ZEPH," " MERCY PHILBRICK's 

CHOICE," "BETWEEN WHILES," " BITS OF TALK 

ABOUT HOME MATTERS," " BITS OF TALK FOR 

YOUNG FOLKS," " NELLY'S SILVER 

MINE," " CAT STORIES." 




BOSTON: 
ROBERTS BROTHERS. 

1886. 



.3 \* ^ 



Copyright, /5<S6, 

By Roberts Brothers. 



SKntbersttg Press: 
John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, 



CONTENTS. 



I. 

CALIFORNIA AND OREGON. 

Page 

Outdoor Industries in Southern California . 3 

Father Junipero and his Work. I. II. . . 30 

The Present Condition of the Mission Indians in 

Southern California .78 

Echoes in the City of the Angels . . . 103 

Chance Days in Oregon 129 

II. 

SCOTLAND AND ENGLAND. 

A Burns Pilgrimage 153 

Glints in Auld Reekie 175 

Chester Streets • 196 

III. 

NORWAY, DENMARK, AND GERMANY. 

Bergen Days 221 

Four Days with Sanna 245 

The Katrina Saga. I. II 277 

Encyclicals of a Traveller. I. II. III. . . 322 

The Village of Oberammergau .... 384 

The Passion Play at Oberammergau . . . 402 



CALIFORNIA AND OREGON. 



GLIMPSES OF THREE COASTS. 



I. 

CALIFORNIA AND OREGON. 

OUTDOOR INDUSTRIES IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA. 

Climate is to a country what temperament is to a 
man, — Fate. The figure is not so fanciful as it seems; 
for temperament, broadly defined, may be said to be that 
which determines the point of view of a man's mental 
and spiritual vision, — in other words, the light in which 
he sees things. And the word "climate" is, primarily, 
simply a statement of bounds defined according to the ob- 
liquity of the sun's course relative to the horizon, — in 
other words, the slant of the sun. The tropics are tropic 
because the sun shines down too straight. Vegetation 
leaps into luxuriance under the nearly vertical ray : but 
human activities languish ; intellect is supine ; only the 
passions, human nature's rank weed-growths, thrive. In 
the temperate zone, again, the sun strikes the earth too 
much aslant. Human activities develop ; intellect is keen ; 
the balance of passion and reason is normally adjusted : 
but vegetation is slow and restricted. As compared with 
the productiveness of the tropics, the best that the tem- 
perate zone can do is scanty. 

There are a few spots on the globe where the conditions 
of the country override these laws, and do away with these 
lines of discrimination in favors. Florida, Italy, the South W 
of France and of Spain, a few islands, and South California 
complete the list. 



4 CALIFORNIA AND OREGON. 

These places are doubly dowered. They have the 
wealths of the two zones, without the drawbacks of either. 
In South California this results from two causes : first, the 
presence of a temperate current in the ocean, near the 
coast ; second, the configuration of the mountain ranges 
which intercept and reflect the sun's rays, and shut South 
California off from the rest of the continent. It is, as it 
were, climatically insulated, — a sort of island on land. It 
has just enough of sea to make its atmosphere temperate. 
Its continental position and affinities give it a dryness no 
island could have ; and its climatically insulated position 
gives it an evenness of temperature much be3'ond the 
continental average. 

It has thus a cool summer and a temperate winter, — 
conditions which secure the broadest and highest agricult- 
ural and horticultural possibilities. It is the only country 
in the world where dairies and orange orchards will thrive 
together. 

It has its own zones of climate ; not at all following 
lines parallel to the equator, but following the trend of its 
mountains. The California mountains are a big and inter- 
esting family of geological children, with great gaps in 
point of age, the Sierra Nevada being oldest of all. Time 
was when the Sierra Nevada fronted directly on the Pa- 
cific, and its rivers dashed down straight into the sea. 
But that is ages ago. Since then have been born out of 
the waters the numerous coast ranges, all following more 
or less closely the shore line. These are supplemented at 
Point Conception bj' east and west ranges, which complete 
the insulating walls of South, or semi-tropic, California. 
The coast ranges are the youngest of the children born ; 
but the ocean is still pregnant of others. Range after 
range, far out to sea, the}' lie, with their attendant A-allej-s, 
biding their time, popping their heads out here and there 
in the shape of islands. 

This colossal furrow sj'stem of mountains must have its 
correlative system of valleys ; hence the great valley divis- 
ions of the countiy. There may be said to be four groups 
or kinds of these : the low and broad valleys, so broad 
that they are plains ; the high mountain valle3*s ; the 
rounded plateaus of the Great Basin, as it is called, of 
which the Bernardino Mountains are the southern rim ; 



OUTDOOR INDUSTRIES IN CALIFORNIA. 5 

and the river valle\ T s or canons, — these last running at 
angles to the mountain and shore lines. 

When the air in these valle}^ becomes heated by the 
sun, it rushes up the slopes of the Sierra Nevada as up a 
might}^ chimney. To fill the vacuum thus created, the sea 
air is drawn in through every break in the coast ranges 
as by a blower. In the upper part of the California 
coast it sucks in with fury, as through the Golden Gate, 
piling up and demolishing high hills of sand every .year, 
and cutting grooves on the granite fronts of mountains. 

The country may be said to have three distinct indus- 
trial belts : the first, along the coast, a narrow one, from 
one to fifteen miles wide. In this grow some of the decid- 
uous fruits, corn, pumpkins, and grain. Dairy and stock 
interests flourish. The nearness of the sea makes the air 
cool, with fogs at night. There .are many cienagas, or 
marshy regions, where grass is green all the year round, 
and water is near the surface everywhere. Citrus fruits 
do not flourish in this belt, except in sheltered spots at the 
higher levels. ^"~ 

The second industrial belt comprises the shorter val- 
leys opening toward the sea ; a belt of country averaging 
perhaps forty miles in width. In this belt all grains will 
grow without irrigation ; all deciduous fruits, including 
the grape, flourish well without irrigation ; the citrus fruits 
thrive, but need irrigation. 

The third belt lies back of this, farther from the sea ; 
and the land, without irrigation, is worthless for all pur- 
poses except pasturage. That, in years of average rain- 
fall, is good. 

The soils of South California are chiefly of the creta- 
ceous and tertiary epochs. The most remarkable thing 
about them is their great depth. It is not uncommon, in 
making wells, to find the soil the same to a depth of one 
hundred feet ; the same thing is to be observed in canons, 
cuts, and exposed bluffs on the sea-shore. This accounts 
for the great fertility of much of the land. Crops are 
raised year after year, sometimes for twenty successive 
years, on the same fields, without the soil's showing ex- 
haustion ; and what are called volunteer crops, sowing 
themselves, give good yields for the first, second, and 
even third year after the original planting. 



6 CALIFORNIA AND OREGON. 

To provide for a wholesome variety and succession of 
seasons, in a country where both winter and summer were 
debarred full reign, was a meteorological problem that 
might well have puzzled even Nature's ingenuity. But 
next to a vacuum, she abhors monotony ; and to avoid it, 
she has, in California, resorted even to the water-cure, — 
getting her requisite alternation of seasons by making one 
wet and the other dry. 

To define the respective limits of these seasons becomes 
more and more difficult the longer one stays in California, 
and the more one studies rain-fall statistics. Generally 
speaking, the wet season ma}' be said to be from the 
middle of October to the middle of April, corresponding 
nearly with the outside limits of the north temperate zone 
season of snows. A good description of the two seasons 
would be — and it is not so purely humorous and un- 
scientific as it sounds — that the wet season is the sea- 
son in which it can rain, but ma} r not ; and the dry season 
is the season in which it cannot rain, but occasionally 
does. 

Sometimes the rains expected and hoped for in October 
do not begin until March, and the whole country is in 
anxiety ; a drought in the wet season meaning drought for 
a year, and great losses. There have been such 3~ears in 
California, and the dread of them is well founded. But 
often the rains, coming later than their wont, are so full C 
and steady that the requisite number of inches fall, and 
the year's supply is made good. The average rain-fall 
in San Diego County is ten inches ; in Los Angeles, | 
San Bernardino, and Ventura counties, fifteen ; in Santa L 
Barbara, twenty. These five counties are all that prop- jf 
erly come under the name of South California, resting v 
the division on natural and climatic grounds. The po- 1 
litical division, if ever made, will be based on other 
than natural or climatic reasons, and will include two, 
possibly three, more counties. 

The pricelessness of water in a land where no rain falls » 
during six months of the year cannot be appreciated hy \ 
one who has not lived in such a country. There is a say- f 
ing in South California that if a man buys water he can \ 
get his land thrown in. This is only an epigrammatic 
putting of the literal fact that the value of much of.j 



OUTDOOR INDUSTRIES IN CALIFORNIA. 7 

the land depends solely upon the water which it holds or 
controls. 

Four S3*stems of irrigation are practised : First, flooding 
the land. This is possible only in flat districts, where 
there are large heads of water. It is a wasteful method^ 
and is less and less used each year. The second system 
is by furrows. By this system a large head of water is 
brought upon the land and distributed in small streams in 
many narrow furrows. The streams are made as small 
as will run across the ground, and are allowed to run only 
twentj'-four hours at a time. The third system is by 
basins dug around tree roots. To these basins water is 
brought by pipes or ditches ; or, in mountain lands, by 
flumes. The fourth system is by sub-irrigation. This is 
the most expensive system of all, but is thought to econo-j 
mize water. The water is carried in pipes laid from two 
to three feet under ground. By opening valves in these . 
pipes the water is let out and up, but never comes above 
the surface. 

The appliances of one sort and another belonging to 
these irrigation systems add much to the picturesqueness 
of South California landscapes. Even the huge, tower- 
like, round-fanned windmills by which the water is pumped 
up are sometimes, spite of their clumsiness, made effective 
by gay colors and by vines growing on them. If the3 T had 
broad, stretching arms, like the Holland windmills, the 
whole country would seem a-flutter. 

The history of the industries of South California since 
the American occupation is interesting in its record of suc- 
cessions, — successions, not the result of human interven- 
tions and decisions so much as of climatic fate, which, in 
epoch after epoch, created different situations. 

The history begins with the cattle interest ; hardl}' an 
industr} r , perhaps, or at any rate an unindustrious one, but 
belonging in point of time at the head of the list of the 
ways and means by which money has been made in the 
country. It dates back to the old mission days ; to the two 
hundred head of cattle which the wise Galvez brought, in 
1769, for stocking the three missions projected in Upper 
California. 

From these had grown, in the sixty years of the friars' 
unhindered rule, herds, of which it is no exaggeration to 



8 CALIFORNIA AND OREGON. 

say that they covered thousands of hills and were beyond 
counting. It is probable that even the outside estimates of 
their numbers were short of the truth. The cattle wealth, 
the reckless ruin of the secularization period, survived, and 
was the leading wealth of the country at the time of its 
surrender to the United States. It was most wastefully 
handled. The cattle were killed, as they had been in the 
mission days, simply for their hides and tallow. Kingdoms 
full of people might have been fed on the beef which rotted 
on the ground every year, and the California cattle ranch 
in which either milk or butter could be found was an 
exception to the rule. 

Into the calm of this half-barbaric life broke the fierce 
excitement of the gold discovery in 1849. The swarming j 
hordes of ravenous miners must be fed ; beef meant gold, r 
The cattlemen suddenly found in their herds a new source { 
of undreamed-of riches. Cattle had been sold as low as f 
two dollars and a half a head. When the gold fever was \ 
at its highest, there were da} T s and places in which they 
sold for three hundred. It is not strange that the rancheros f 
lost their heads, grew careless and profligate. 

Then came the drought of 1864, which killed off cattle 
by thousands of thousands. By thousands they were driven 
over steep places into the sea to save pasturage, and to 
save the country from the stench and the poison of their 
dying of hunger. In April of that year, fifty thousand 
head were sold in Santa Barbara for thirty-seven and a 
half cents a head. Many of the rancheros were ruined ; 
they had to mortgage their lands to live ; their stock was 
gone ; they could not farm ; values so sank, that splendid j] 
estates were not worth over ten cents an acre. 

Then came in a new set of owners. From the north and 
from the interior poured in the thriftier sheep men, with| 
big flocks ; and for a few 3* ears the wide belt of good pas- \. 
turage land along the coast was chiefly a sheep country. 

Slowly farmers followed ; settling, in the beginning, 
around town centres such as Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, 1 
Ventura. Grains and vegetables were grown for a resource 
when cattle and sheep should fail. Cows needed water all 
the }^ear round ; corn only a few months. A wheat-field 
might get time to ripen in a year when by reason of a L 
drought a herd of cattle would die. 



OUTDOOR INDUSTRIES IN CALIFORNIA. 9 

Thus the destiny of the country steadily went on toward 
its fulfilling, because the inexorable logic of the situation 
forced itself in^o the minds of the population. From grains 
and vegetables to fruits was a short and natural step, in 
the balmy air, under the sunny sky, and with the tradi- 
tions and relics of the old friars' opulent fruit growths lin- 
gering all through the land. Each palm, orange-tree, and 
vineyard left on the old mission sites was a way-signal to 
the new peoples ; mute, yet so eloquent, the wonder is that 
so many years should have elapsed before the road began 
to be thronged. 

Such, in brief, is the chronicle of the development of 
South California's outdoor industries down to the present 
time ; of the successions through which the country has 
been making read} 7, to become what it will surely be, the 
Garden of the world, — a garden with which no other coun- 
try can vie ; a garden in* which will grow, side by side, the 
grape and the pumpkin, the pear and the orange, the olive 
and the apple, the strawberry and the lemon, Indian corn 
and the banana, wheat and the guava. 

The leading position which the fruit interest will ulti- 
mately take has been reached only in Los Angeles County. 
There the four chief industries, ranged according to their 
relative importance, stand as follows : Fruit, grain, wool, 
stock, and dairy. This county may be said to be pre-emi- 
nently the garden of the Garden. No other of the five 
counties can compete with it. Its fruit harvest is nearly 
unintermitted all the year round. The main orange crop 
ripens from January to 'May, though oranges hang on the 
trees all the year. The lemon, lime, and citron ripen and 
hang, like the orange. Apricots, pears, peaches, necta- 
rines, strawberries, currants, and figs are plentiful in June ; 
apples, pears, peaches, during July and August. Late in 
Jul}' grapes begin, and last till January. September is the 
best month of all, having grapes, peaches, pomegranates, 
walnuts, almonds, and a second crop of figs. From late 
in August till Christmas, the vintage does not cease. 

The county has a sea-coast line of one hundred miles, 
and contains three millions of acres ; two thirds mountain 
and desert, the remaining million good pasturage and til- 
lable land. What is known as the great Los Angeles val- 
ley has an area of about sixty miles in length by thirty in 



10 CALIFORNIA AND OREGON. 

width, and contains the three rivers of the county, — the 
Los Angeles, the Santa Ana, and the San Gabriel. Every 
drop of the water of these rivers and of tfie numberless 
little springs and streams ministering to their system is 
owned, rated, utilized, and, one might almost add, wran- 
gled over. The chapters of these water litigations are 
many and full ; and it behooves every new settler in the 
county to inform himself on that question first of all, and 
thoroughly. 

In the Los Angeles valley lie several lesser valleys, fer- 
tile and beautiful ; most notable of these, the San Gabriel 
valley, where was the site of the old San Gabriel Mission, 
twelve miles east of the town of Los Angeles. This valley 
is now taken up in large ranches, or in colonies of settlers 
banded together for mutual help and security in matter of 
water rights. This colony feature is daily becoming more 
and more an important one in the development of the whole 
country. Small individual proprietors cannot usually afford 
the purchase of sufficient water to make horticultural enter- 
prises successful or safe. The incorporated colon}', there- 
fore, offers advantages to large numbers of settlers of a 
class that could not otherwise get foothold in the country, 
— the men of comparatively small means, who expect to 
work with their hands and await patiently the slow growth 
of moderate fortunes, — a most useful and abiding class, 
making a solid basis for prosperity. Some of the best 
results in South California have already been attained in 
colonies of this sort, such as Anaheim, Riverside, and 
Pasadena. The method is regarded with increasing favor. 
It is a rule of give and take, which works equally well for 
both country and settlers. 

The South California statistics of fruits, grain, wool, 
honey, etc., read more like fanc} T than like fact, and are 
not readily believed by one unacquainted with the country. 
The only way to get a real comprehension and intelligent 
acceptance of them is to stud} 7 them on the ground. B}' a 
single visit to a great ranch one is more enlightened than 
he would be by committing to memory scores of Equaliza- 
tion Board Reports. One of the very best, if not the best, 
for this purpose is Baldwin's ranch, in the San Gabriel 
valley. It includes a large part of the old lands of the San 
Gabriel Mission, and is a principality in itself. 



OUTDOOR INDUSTRIES IN CALIFORNIA. 11 

There are over a hundred men on its pay-roll, which 
averages $4,000 a month. Another $4,000 does not more 
than meet its running expenses. It has $6,000 worth of 
machinery for its grain harvests alone. It has a dairy of 
forty cows, Jersey and Durham ; one hundred and twenty 
work-horses and mules, and fifty thoroughbreds. 

It is divided into four distinct estates :' the Santa Anita, 
of 16,000 acres; Puente, 18,000; Merced, 20,000; and 
the Potrero, 25,000. The Puente and Merced are sheep 
ranches, and have 20,000 sheep on them. The Potrero is 
rented out to small farmers. The Santa Anita is the home 
estate. On it are the homes of the family and of the 
laborers. It has fifteen hundred acres of oak grove, four 
thousand acres in grain, five hundred in grass for ha} r , one 
hundred and fifty in orange orchards, fifty of almond trees, 
sixty of walnuts, twenty-five of pears, fifty of peaches, 
twent\ r of lemons, and five hundred in vines ; also small 
orchards of chestnuts, hazel-nuts, and apricots ; and thou- 
sands of acres of good pasturage. 

From whatever side one approaches Santa Anita in May, 
he will drive through a wild garden, — asters, yellow and 
white ; scarlet pentstemons, blue larkspur, monk's-hood ; 
lupines, white and blue ; gorgeous golden eschscholtzia, 
alder, wild lilac, wmite sage, — all in riotous flowering. 

Entering the ranch b} T one of the north gates, he will 
look southward down gentle slopes of orchards and vine- 
yards far across the valley, the tints growing softer and 
softer, and blending more and more with each mile, till all 
melt into a blue or purple haze. Driving from orchard to 
orchard, down half-mile avenues through orchards skirting 
seemingly endless stretches of vineyard, he begins to real- 
ize what comes of planting trees and vines by hundreds 
and tens of hundreds of acres, and the Equalization Board 
Statistics no longer appear to him even large. It does not 
seem wonderful that Los Angeles County should be re- 
ported as having sixty-two hundred acres in vines, when 
here on one man's ranch are five hundred acres. The last 
Equalization Board Report said the county had 256,135 
orange and 41,250 lemon trees. It would hardly have sur- 
prised him to be told that there were as many as that in 
the Santa Anita groves alone. The effect on the eye of 
such huge tracts, planted with a single sort of tree, is to 



12 CALIFORNIA AND OREGON. 

increase enormously the apparent size of the tract ; the 
mind stumbles on the very threshold of the attempt to f 
reckon its distances and numbers, and the3 T become vaster I 
and vaster as the\ T grow vague. 

The orange orchard is not the unqualifiedly beautiful ; 
spectacle one dreams it will be ; nor, in fact, is it so beau- I 
t if ul as it ought to be, with its evergreen shining foliage, 
snowy blossoms, and golden fruit hanging together and 
lavishly all the year round. I fancy that if travellers told 
truth, ninety-nine out of a hundred would confess to a 
grievous disappointment at their first sight of the orange I 
at home. In South California the trees labor under the 
great disadvantage of being surrounded by bare brown 
earth. How much this dulls their effect one realizes on I 
finding now and then a neglected grove where grass has | 
been allowed to grow under the trees, to their ruin as fruit- 
bearers, but incomparably heightening their beauty. An- ! 
other fatal defect in the orange-tree is its contour. It is 
too round, too stout for its height ; almost as bad a thing 
in a tree as in a human being. The uniformity of this con- 
tour of the trees, combined with the regularity of their 
setting in eventy spaced rows, gives large orange groves a 
certain tiresome quality, which one recognizes with a guilty 
sense of being shamefully ungrateful for so much splendor 
of sheen and color. The exact spherical shape of the fruit ! 
possibly helps on this tiresomeness. One wonders if ob- 
long bunches of long-pointed and curving fruit, banana- 
like, set irregularly among the glossy green leaves, would \ 
not look better ; which wonder adds to ingratitude an im- 
pertinence, of which one suddenly repents on seeing such 
a tree as I saw in a Los Angeles garden in the winter of 
1882, — a tree not over thirty feet high, with twenty-five 
hundred golden oranges hanging on it, among leaves so j 
glossy they glittered in the sun with the glitter of burnished l 
metal. Never the Hesperides saw a more resplendent j 
sight. 

But the orange looks its best plucked and massed ; it 
lends itself then to every sort and extent of decoration, j 
At a citrus fair in the Riverside coloiry in March, 1882, in 
a building one hundred and fifty feet long by sixty wide, 
built of redwood planks, were five long tables loaded with 
oranges and lemons ; rows, plates, pjrramids, baskets ; the 



OUTDOOR INDUSTRIES IN CALIFORNIA. 13 

bright redwood walls hung with great boughs, full as 
when broken from the tree ; and each plate and pyramid 
decorated with the shining green leaves. The whole place 
was fairly ablaze, and made one think of the Arabian 
Nights' Tales. The acme of success in orange culture in 
California is said to have been attained in this Riverside 
colon}', though it is only six years old, and does not yet 
number two thousand souls. There are in its orchards 
209,000 orange-trees, of which 28,000 are in bearing, 
20.000 lemon trees, and 8,000 limes. 

The profits of orange culture are slow to begin, but, 
having once begun, mount up fast. Orange orchards at 
San Gabriel have in many instances netted $500 an acre 
annually. The following estimate, the result of sixteen 
3 T ears' experience, is probably a fair one of the outla} T and 
income of a small orange grove : — 

10 acres of land, at 875 per acre §750.00 

1000 trees, at 875 per hundred 750.00 

Ploughing and harrowing, 82. 50 per acre .... 25.00 

Digging holes, planting, 10 cents each 100.00 

Irrigating and planting 10.00 

Cultivation after irrigation 4.50 

8 subsequent irrigations during the year .... 80.00 

3 subsequent cultivations the first year 13.50 

Total cost, first year §1,683.00 

Tliis estimate of cost of land is based on the price of the best 
lands in the San Gabriel valley. Fair lands can be bought in 
other sections at lower prices. 

Second year. — An annual ploughing in January . 825 00 

Four irrigations during year 40.00 

Six cultivations during year 27.00 

Third year 125.00 

Fourth year 150 00 

Fifth year 200 00 

Interest on investment 1,000.00 

Total 83,250.00 

If first-class, healthy, thrifty budded trees are planted, they 
will begin to fruit the second year. The third year, a few 
boxes may be marketed. The fourth year, there will be an 
average yield of at least 75 oranges to the tree, which will equal: 



14 CALIFORNIA AND OREGON. 

75,000, at $10 per thousand net $750.00 

The fifth year, 250 per tree, 250,000, at $10 per 
thousand 2,500.00 






Total $3,250.00 | 

ll 
The orchard is now clear gain, allowing $1,000 as interest on 
the investment. The increase in the volume of production will A 
continue, until at the end of the tenth year an average of 1,000 ,J 
oranges to a tree would not be an extraordinary yield. 

I 

To all these formulas of reckoning should be added one | 
with the algebraic x representing the unknown quantity, V 
and standing for insect enemies at large. Each kind of \, 
fruit has its own, which must be fought with eternal vigi- !? 
lance. No port, in any country, has more rigid laws of \ 
quarantine than are now enforced in California against j| 
these insect enemies. Grafts, cuttings, fruit, if even sus- j 
pected, are seized and compelled to go through as severe ' 
disinfecting processes as if they were Cuban passengers 
fresh from a yellow fever epidemic. 

The orange's worst enemy is a curious insect, the scale- ! 
bug. It looks more like a mildew than like anything alive ; i 
is usually black, sometimes red. Nothing but violent treat- | 
ment with tobacco will eradicate it. Worse than the 
scale-bug, in that he works out of sight underground, is 
the gopher. He has gnawed every root of a tree bare be- 
fore a tooth-mark on the trunk suggests his presence, and 
then it is too late to save the tree. The rabbit also is a 
pernicious ally in the barking business ; he, however, be- |i 
ing shy, soon disappears from settled localities ; but the |< 
gopher stands not in fear of man or men. Only persist- j- 
ent strychnine, on his door-sills and thrust down his wind- 
ing stairs, will save the orchard in which he has founded a 
community. 

The almond and the walnut orchards are beautiful feat- 
ures in the landscape all the year round, no less in the 
winter, when their branches are naked, than in the season ;i 
of their full leaf and bearing. In fact, the broad spaces 
■of fillip gray made by their acres when leafless are deli- I 
cious values in contrast with the solid green of the orange 
orchards. The exquisite revelation of tree systems which 
stripped boughs give is seen to more perfect advantage 



OUTDOOR INDUSTRIES IN CALIFORNIA. 15 

against a warm sky than a cold one, and is heightened in 
effect standing side b} r side with tiie flowing green pepper- 
trees and purple eucalyptus. 

In the time of blossoms, an almond orchard, seen from 

i a distance, is like nothing so much as a rosy-white cloud, 

floated off a sunset and spread on the earth. Seen nearer, 

it is a pink snow-storm, arrested and set on stalks, with 

an orchestra buzz of bees filling the air. 

It is a pity that the almond-tree should not be more re- 
paying ; for it will be a sore loss to the beauty of the coun- 
try when the orchards are gone, and this is only a question 
of time. They are being uprooted and cast out. The 
crop is a disappointing one, of uncertain yield, and trouble- 
some to prepare. The nuts must be five times handled : 
first picked, then shucked,- then dried, then bleached, and 
then again dried. After the first drying, they are dipped 
by basketfuls into hot water, then poured into the bleach- 
ers, — boxes with perforated bottoms. Underneath these 
is a sulphur fire to which the nuts must be exposed for fif- 
teen or twenty minutes. Then they are again spread in a 
drying-house. The final gathering them up to send to 
market makes really a sixth handling ; and after all is 
said and done, the nuts are not very good, being flavorless 
in comparison with those grown in Europe. 

The walnut orchard is a better investment, and no less 
a delight to the eye. While young, the walnut-tree is 
graceful : when old, it is stately. It is a sturdy bearer, 
and if it did not bear at all, would be worth honorable place 
and room on large estates, simply for its avenues of gen- 
erous shade. It is planted in the seed, and transplanted 
at two or three years old, with only twenty-seven trees to 
an acre. They begin to bear at ten years, reach full bear- 
ing at fifteen, and do not give sign of failing at fifty. 

Most interesting of all South California's outdoor indus- 
tries is the grape culture. To speak of grape culture is to f 
enter upon a subject which needs a volume. Its history, / 
its riches, past and prospective, its methods, its beautiful I 
panorama of pictures, each by itself is worth study and \ 
exhaustive treatment. Since the clays of Eschol, the vine | 
and the vineyard have been honored in the thoughts and j 
the imaginations of men ; they furnished shapes and 
designs for the earliest sacred decorations in the old dis- 



16 CALIFORNIA AND OREGON. 

pensation, and suggestions and symbols for divine para- 
bles in the new. No age has been without them, and no 
country whose sun was warm enough to make them thrive. 
It is safe to predict that so long as the visible frame of 
the earth endures, " wine to make glad the heart of man" 
will be made, loved, celebrated, and sung. 

To form some idea of California's future wealth from 
the grape culture, it is only necessary to reflect on the ex- 
tent of her grape-growing country as compared with that 
of France. In France, before the days of the phylloxera, 
5,000,000 of people were supported entirely by the grape 
industry, and the annual average of the wine crop was 
2,000,000,000 gallons, with a value of $400,000,000. 
The annual wine-yield of California is already estimated 
at about 10,000,000 gallons. Nearly one third of this is 
made in South California, chiefly in Los Angeles County, 
where the grape culture is steadily on the increase, five 
millions of new vines having been set out in the spring of 
1882. 

The vineyards offer more variety to the e} r e than the 
orange orchards. In winter, when leafless, they are gro- 
tesque ; their stocky, twisted, hunchback stems looking like 
Hindoo idols or deformed imps, no two alike in a square 
mile, all weird, fantastic, uncanny. Their first leafing out 
does not do away with this ; the imps seem simply to have 
put up green umbrellas ; but presently the leaves widen 
and lap, hiding the uncouth trunks, and spreading over all 
the vineyard a beautiful, tender green, with lights and 
shades breaking exquisitely in the hollows and curves of 
the great leaves. From this on, through all the stages 
of blossoms and seed-setting, till the clusters are so big 
and purple that they gleam out everywhere between the 
leaves, — sometimes forty-five pounds on a single vine, if 
the vine is irrigated, twelve if it is left to itself. Eight 
tons of grapes off one acre have been taken in the Baldwin 
ranch. There were made there, in 1881, 100,000 gallons 
of wine and 50,000 of brandy. The vintage begins late in 
August, and lasts many weeks, some varieties of grapes 
ripening later than others. The vineyards are thronged 
with Mexican and Indian pickers. The Indians come in 
bands, and pitch their tents just outside the vineyard. 
The}' are good workers. The wine-cellars and the great 



OUTDOOR INDUSTRIES IN CALIFORNIA. 17 

crushing-vats tell the vizards' story more emphatically 
even than the statistical figures. A vat that will hold 
1,000 gallons piled full of grapes, huge wire wheels driving 
round and round in the spurting, foaming mass, the juice fly- 
ing off through trough-like shoots on each side into seventy 
great vats ; below, breathless men working the wheels, 
loads of grapes coming up momently and being poured 
into the swirling vat, the whole air reeking with winy 
flavor. The scene makes earth seem young again, old 
mythologies real ; and one would not wonder to see Bac- 
chus and his leopards come bowling up, with shouting Pan 
behind. 

The cellars are still, dark, and fragrant. Forty-eight 
great oval-shaped butts, ten feet in diameter, holding 2,100 
gallons each, I counted in one cellar. The butts are made 
of Michigan oak, and have a fine yellow color, which con- 
trasts well with the red stream of the wine when it is drawn. 

Notwithstanding the increase of the grape culture, the 
price of grapes is advancing, some estimates making it 
forty per cent higher than it was five years ago. It is 
a quicker and probably a more repaying industry than 
orange-growing. It is reckoned that a vineyard in its 
fourth year will produce two tons to the acre ; in the 
seventh year, four ; the fourth year it will be profitable, 
reckoning the cost of the vineyard at sixty dollars r>n 
acre, exclusive of the first cost of the land. The annual 
expense of cultivation, picking, and handling is about 
twenty-five dollars. The rapid increase of this culture 
has been marvellous. In 1848 there were only 200,000 
vines in all California ; in 1862 there were 9,500,000 ; in 
1881, 64,000,000, of which at least 34,000,000 are in full 
bearing. 

Such facts and figures are distressing to the advocates 
of total abstinence ; but they may take heart in the thought 
that a by no means insignificant proportion of these grapes 
will be made into raisins, canned, or eaten fresh. 

The raisin crop was estimated at 160,000 boxes for 
18 SI. Many grape-growers believe that in raisin-making 
will ultimately be found the greatest profit. The Ameri- 
cans are a raisin-eating people. From Malaga alone are 
imported annually into the United States about ten tons 
of raisins, one half the entire crop of the Malaga raisin 

2 



18 CALIFORNIA AND OREGON 

district. This district has an area of only about four hun- 
dred square miles. In California an area of at least twenty 
thousand square miles is adapted to the raisin. 

A moderate estimate of the entire animal grape crop of 
California is 119,000 tons. "Allowing 60,000 tons to be 
used in making wines, 2,000 tons to be sent fresh to the 
Eastern States, and 5,000 tons to be made into raisins, 
there would still remain 52,000 tons to be eaten fresh or 
wasted, — more than one hundred pounds for each resident 
of California, including children." x 

The California wines are as yet of inferior quality. A 
variety of still wines and three champagnes are made ; but 
even the best are looked on with distrust and disfavor hy 
connoisseurs, and until they greatly improve they will not 
command a read}' market in America. At present it is 
to be feared that a large proportion of them are sold under 
foreign labels. 

Prominent among the minor industries is honey-making. 
From the great variety of flowers and their spicy flavor, 
especially from the aromatic sages, the honey is said to 
have a unique and delicious taste, resembling that of the 
famous hone} 7 of Hymettus. 

The crop for 1881, in the four southern counties, was 
estimated at three millions of pounds ; a statistic that 
must seem surprising to General Fremont, who, in his re- 
port to Congress of explorations on the Pacific coast in 
1844, stated that the hone}'-bee could not exist west of the 
Sierra Nevadas. 

The bee ranches are always picturesque ; they are usually 
in canons or on wooded foot-hills, and their villages of tiny 
bright-colored hives look like gay Lilliputian encampments. 
It has appeared to me that men becoming guardians of 
bees acquire a peculiar calm philosophy, and are superior 
to other farmers and outdoor workers. It would not seem 
unnatural that the profound respect they are forced to 
entertain for insects so small and so wholly at their mercy 
should give them enlarged standards in many things ; 
above all, should breed in them a fine and just humility 
toward all creatures. 

1 John G. Hittell's Commerce and Industries of the Pacific Coast. 



OUTDOOR INDUSTRIES IN CALIFORNIA. 19 

A striking instance of this is to be seen in one of the 
most beautiful canons of the San Gabriel valley, where, 
living in a three-roomed, redwood log cabin, with a vine- 
covered booth in front, is an old man kings might envy. 

He had a soldier's warrant}* deed for one hundred and 
sixty acres of land, and he elected to take his estate at 
the head of a brook-swept gorge, four fifths precipice and 
rock. In the two miles between his cabin and the mouth 
of the gorge, the trail and the brook change sides sixteen 
times. When the brook is at its best, the trail goes under 
altogether, and there is no getting up or down the canon. 
Here, with a village of bees for companions, the old man 
has lived for a dozen years. While the bees are off at 
work, he sits at liome and w r eaves, out of the gnarled 
stems and roots of manzanita and laurels, curious baskets, 
chairs, and brackets, for which he finds read}' market 
in Los Angeles. He knows every tree and shrub in the 
canon, and has a fancy for collecting specimens of all the 
native woods of the region. These he shapes into paper- 
cutters, and polishes them till the}* are like satin. He 
came from Ohio forty years ago, and has lived in a score 
of States. The only spot he likes as well as this gorge is 
Don Yana, on the Rio Grande River, in Mexico. Some- 
times he hankers to go there and sit under the shadow of 
big oaks, where the land slopes down to the river ; but 
" the bee business," he says, -- is a good business only for 
a man who has the gift of continuance;" and "it's no 
use to try to put bees with farms : farms w T ant valleys, 
bees want mountains." 

-' There are great back-draws to the bee business, the 
irregularities of the flowers being chief ; some years there 's 
no honey in the flowers at all. Some explain it on one 
hypothesis and some on another, and it lasts them to 
quarrel over." 

His phrases astonish you ; also the quiet courtesy of his 
manner, so at odds with his backwoodsman's garb. But 
presently you learn that he began life as a lawyer, has been 
a judge in his time ; and when, to show his assortment of 
paper-cutters, he lifts down the big book they are kept in, 
and you see that it is Voltaire's " Philosophical Dictionary," 
you understand how his speech has been fashioned. He 
keeps a diary of every hive, the genealogy of every swarm. 



20 CALIFORNIA AND OREGON. 

" No matter what they do, — the least thing, — we note 
it right down in the book. That 's the only way to learn 
bees," he says. 

On the outside wall of the cabin is fastened an observa- 
tion hive, with glass sides. Here he sits, watch in hand, 
observing and noting ; he times the bees, in and out, and | 
in each one of their operations. He watches the queen on 
her bridal tour in the air ; once the drone bridegroom fell 
dead on his note-book. " I declare I couldn't help feeling- 
sort of sorry for him," said the old man. 

In a shanty behind the house is the great hone} T -strainer, 
a marvellous invention, which would drive bees mad with 
despair if they could understand it. Into a wheel, with 
perforated spokes, is slipped the comb full of honey, the 
cells being first opened with a hot knife. By the swift 
turning of this wheel, the hone} r flies out of the comb, and 
pours through a cylinder into a can underneath, leaving 
the comb whole and uninjured, ready to be put back into 
the hive for the patient robbed bees to fill again. The 
receiving-can will hold fifteen hundred pounds; two men 
can fill it in a daj- ; a single comb is so quickly drained 
that a bee might leave his hive on his foraging expedi- 
tion, and before he could get his little load of honey and 
return, the comb could be emptied and put back. It 
would be vastly interesting to know what is thought and 
said in bee-hives about these mysterious emptyings of 
combs. 

A still more tyrannical circumvention has been devised, 
to get extra rations of hone}- from bees : false combs, 
wonderful imitations of the real ones, are made of wax. 
Apparently the bees know no difference ; at any rate, they 
fill the counterfeit full of real honey. These artificial 
combs, carefully handled, will last ten or twelve years in 
continual use. 

The highest yield his hives had ever given him was one 
hundred and eighty pounds a hive. 

"That's a good yield; at that rate, with three or 
four hundred hives, I'd do very well," said the old man. 
"But you're at the mercy of speculators in honey as 
well as everything else. T never count on getting more 
than four or five cents a pound. The} T make more than 
I do." 



OUTDOOR INDUSTRIES IN CALIFORNIA. 21 

The bee has a full year's work in South California : from 
March to August inexhaustible forage, and in all the other 
months plenty to do, — no month without some blossoms 
to be found. His time of danger is when apricots are ripe 
and lady-bugs fly. 

Of apricots, bees will eat till they are either drunk or 
stuffed to death ; no one knows which. They do not live 
to get home. Oddly enough, they cannot pierce the skins 
themselves, but have to wait till the lady-bug has made a 
hole for them. It must have been an accidental thing in 
the outset, the first bee's joining a lady-bug at her feast of 
apricot. The bee, in his turn, is an irresistible treat to 
the bee-bird and lizard, who pounce upon him when he is 
on the flower ; and to a stealthy moth, who creeps by night 
into hives and kills hundreds. 

"Nobody need think the bee business is all play," was 
our old philosopher's last word. ". It 's just like everything 
else in life, and harder than some things." 

The sheep industry is, on the whole, decreasing in Cali- 
fornia. In 1876, the wool crop of the entire State was 
28,000 tons; in 1881, only 21,500. This is the result, 
in part, of fluctuations in the price of wool, but more of 
the growing sense of the greater certainty of increase from 
agriculture and horticulture. 

The cost of keeping a sheep averages only Si. 25 a year. 
Its wool sells for 81.50, and for each hundred there will be 
forty-five lambs, worth seventy-five cents each. But there 
have been droughts in California which have killed over one 
million sheep in a 3-ear ; there is alwa}~s, therefore, the 
risk of losing in one year the profits of many. 

The sheep ranches are usually desolate places : a great 
stretch of seemingly bare lands, with a few fenced corrals, 
blackened and foul-smelling ; the home and out-buildings 
clustered together in a hollow or on a hill-side where there 
is water ; the less human the neighborhood the better. 

The loneliness of the life is, of itself, a salient objection 
to the industry. Of this the great owners need know 
nothing ; they can live where they like. But for the 
small sheepmen, the shepherds, and, above all, the herd- 
ers, it is a terrible life, — how terrible is shown by the 
frequency of insanity among herders. Sometimes, after 



22 CALIFORNIA AND OREGON. 

only a few months of the life, a herder goes suddenly mad. 
After learning this fact, it is no longer possible to see the 
picturesque side of the effective groups one so often comes 
on suddenly in the wildernesses : sheep peacefully grazing, 
and the shepherd lying on the ground watching them, or 
the whole flock racing in a solid, fleecy, billow}' scamper up 
or down a steep hill-side, with the dogs leaping and bark- 
ing on all sides at once. One scans the shepherd's face 
alone, with pitying fear lest he m&y be losing his wits. 

A shearing at a large sheep ranch is a grand sight. We 
had the good fortune to see one at Baldwin's, at La 
Puente. Three thousand sheep had been sheared the day 
before, and they would shear twenty-five hundred on this 
day. 

A shed sixty feet long by twenty-five wide, sides open ; 
small pens full of sheep surrounding it on three sides ; 
eighty men bent over at every possible angle, eighty sheep 
being tightly held in every possible position, eighty shears 
flashing, glancing, clipping ; bright Mexican eyes shin- 
ing,, laughing Mexican voices jesting. At first it seemed 
only a confused scene of phantasmagoria. As our ej'es 
became familiarized, the confusion disentangled itself, 
and we could note the splendid forms of the men and 
their marvellous dexterity in using the shears. Less than 
five minutes it took from the time a sheep was grasped, 
dragged in, thrown down, seized bj* the shearer's knees, 
till it was set free, clean shorn, and its three-pound fleece 
tossed on a table outside. A good shearer shears sev- 
enty or eighty sheep in a da} T ; men of extra dexterity 
shear a hundred. The Indians are famous for skill at 
shearing, and in all their large villages are organized 
shearing-bands, with captains, that go from ranch to 
ranch in the shearing-season. There were a half-dozen 
Indians lying on the ground outside this shearing-shed at 
Puente, looking on wistfully. The Mexicans had crowded 
them out for that day, and they could get no chance to 
work. 

A pay clerk stood in the centre of the shed with a leath- 
ern wallet full of five-cent pieces. As soon as a man had 
sheared his sheep, he ran to the clerk, fleece in hand, 
threw down the fleece, and received his five-cent piece. 
In one corner of the shed was a barrel of beer, which was 



OUTDOOR INDUSTRIES IN CALIFORNIA. 23 

retailed at five cents a glass ; and far too many of the 
five-cent pieces changed hands again the next minute at 
the beer barrel. As fast as the fleeces were tossed out 
from the shed, the}' were thrown up to a man standing on 
the top of the roof. This man flung them into an enor- 
mous bale-sack, swinging wide-mouthed from a derrick ; 
in the sack stood another man, who jumped on the wool 
i to pack it down tight. 

As soon as the shearers perceived that their pictures 

| were being drawn by the artist in our party, the} 7 were 

■ all agog ; b\ T twos and threes they left their work and 

j crowded around the carriage, peering, commenting, ask- 

j ing to have their portraits taken, quizzing those whose 

j features they recognized ; it was like Italy rather than 

j America. One tattered fellow, whose shoeless feet were 

I tied up in bits of gunny-bags, was distressed because his 

trousers were too short. "Would the gentleman kindly 

! make them in the drawing a little farther down his legs ? 

It was an accident the} 7 were so short." All were ready 

to pose and stand, even in the most difficult attitudes, as 

long as was required. Those who had done so asked, 

like children, if their names could not be put in the book ; 

so I wrote them all down : "Juan Canero, Juan Rivera, 

Felipe Ybara, Jose Jesus Lopez, and Domingo Garcia." 

The space thex will fill is a little thing to give ; and there 

is a satisfaction in the good faith of printing them, though 

the shearers will most assuredly never know it. 

The faces of the sheep being shorn were piteous ; not a 
struggle, not a bleat, the whole of their unwillingness and 
terror being written in their upturned ej-es. " As a sheep 
before her shearers is dumb " will always have for me a 
new significance. 

The shepherd in charge of the Puente ranch is an Italian 
named Gaetano. The porch of his shanty was wreathed 
with vines and blossoms, and opened on a characteristic 
little garden, half garlic, the other half pinks and gera- 
niums. As I sat there looking out on the scene, he told 
me of a young man who had come from Italy to be herder 
for him, and who had gone mad and shot himself. 

" Three go crazy last year," he said. " Dey come 
home, not know noting. You see, never got company 
for speak at all." 



24 CALIFORNIA AND OREGON. 

This young boy grew melancholy almost at once, was 
filled with abnormal fears of the coyotes, and begged for 
a pistol to shoot them with. u He want my pistol. I not 
want give. I say, You little sick ; you sta} T home in | 
house ; I send oder man. My wife she go town buy 
clothes for baptism one baby got. He get pistol in drawer 
while she gone." They found him lying dead with his 
catechism in one hand and the pistol in the other. As 
Gaetauo finished the stoiy, a great flock of tw T o thousand 
shorn sheep were suddenly let out from one of the cor- 
rals. With a great burst of bleating they clashed off, 
the colly running after them. Gaetano seized his whis- 
tle and blew a sharp call on it. The dog halted, looked 
back, uncertain for a second ; one more whistle, and he 
bounded on. 

" He know," said Gaetano. " He take dem two tou- 
sand all right. I like better dat dog as ten men." 

On the list of South California's outdoor industries, 
grain stands high, and will alwaj's continue to do so. 
Wheat takes the lead ; but oats, barley, and corn are of 
importance. Barley is always a staple, and averages 
twenty bushels to the acre. 

Oats average from thirty to forty bushels an acre, and 
there are records of yields of considerably over a hundred 
bushels. 

Corn will average forty bushels an acre. On the Los 
Angeles River it has grown stalks seventeen feet high and 
seven inches round. 

The average yield of wheat is from twenty to twenty- 
five bushels an acre, about thirty-three per cent more 
than in the States on the Atlantic slope. 

In grains, as in so many other things, Los Angeles 
County is far in advance of the other counties. In 1879 
there were in the count} 7 31,500 acres in wheat; in 1881, 
not less than 100,000 ; and the value of the wheat crop, 
for 1882 was reckoned $1,020,000. 

The great San Fernando valley, formerly the property 
of the San Fernando Mission, is the chief wheat-producing 
section of the count}'. The larger part of this valley is 
in two great ranches. One of them was bought a few 
years ago for $275,000 ; and $75,000 paid down, the re- 



OUTDOOR INDUSTRIES IN CALIFORNIA. 25 

mainder to be paid in instalments. The next year was a 
dry year ; crops failed. The purchaser offered the ranch 
back again to the original owners, with his $75,000 thrown 
in, if thej' would release him from his bargain. The}' re- 
fused. The next winter rains came, the wheat crop was 
large, prices were high, and the ranch actually paid off 
the entire debt of $200,000 still owing on the purchase. 

From such figures as these, it is easy to see how the 
California farmer can afford to look with equanimity on 
occasional droughts. Experience has shown that he can 
lose crops two years out of five, and yet make a fair 
average profit for the five years. 

The most beautiful ranch in California is said to be the 
one about twelve miles west of Santa Barbara, belonging 
to Elwood Cooper. Its owner speaks of it humorously 
as a little " pocket ranch." In comparison with the great 
ranches whose acres are counted by tens of thousands, it 
is small, being only two thousand acres in extent ; but in 
any other part of the world except California, it would be 
thought a wild jest to speak of an estate of two thousand 
acres as a small one. 

Ten years ago this ranch was a bare, desolate sheep 
ranch, — not a tree on it, excepting the oaks and syca- 
mores in the canons. To-day it has twelve hundred acres 
under high cultivation ; and driving from field to field, 
orchard to orchard, one drives, if he sees the whole of the 
ranch, over eleven miles of good made road. There are 
three hundred acres in wheat, one hundred and seventy 
in barley ; thirty-five hundred walnut trees, twelve thou- 
sand almond, five thousand olive, two thousand fig and 
domestic fruit trees, and one hundred and fifty thousand 
eucalyptus trees, representing twenty-four varieties ; one 
thousand grape-vines ; a few orange, lemon, and lime 
trees. There are on the ranch one hundred head of cattle, 
fifty horses, and fifteen hundred sheep. 

These are mere bald figures, wonderful enough as sta- 
tistics of what ma}' be done in ten years' time on South 
California soil, but totally inadequate even to suggest the 
beauty of the place. 

The first relief to the monotony of the arrow- straight 
road which it pleased an impatient, inartistic man to make 
westward from Santa Barbara, is the sight of high, dark 



26 CALIFORNIA AND OREGON 

walls of eucalyptus trees on either side of the road. A 
shaded avenue, three quarters of a mile long, of these 
represents the frontages of Mr. Cooper's estate. Turn- 
ing to the right, through a break in this wall, is a road, 
with dense eucalyptus woods on the left and an almond 
orchard on the right. It winds and turns, past knolls 
of walnut grove, long lines of olive orchard, and right- 
angled walls of eucalyptus trees shutting in wheat-fields. 
By curves and bends and sharp turns, all the time with 
new views, and new colors from changes of crop, with ex- 
quisite glimpses of the sea shot through here and there, 
it finally, at the end of a mile, reaches the brink of an 
oak-canopied canon. In the mouth of this canon stands 
the house, fronting south on a suniry meadow and garden 
space, walled in on three sides by eucalyptus trees. 

To describe the oak kingdom of this canon would be 
to begin far back of all known kingdoms of the country. 
The branches are a network of rafters upholding roof 
canopies of boughs and leaves so solid that the sun's rays 
pierce them only brokenly, making on the ground a danc- 
ing carpet of brown and gold flecks even in winter, and in 
summer a shade lighted only by starry glints. 

Farther up the canon are sycamores, no less stately 
than the oaks, their limbs gnarled and twisted as if they 
had won their places by splendid wrestle. 

These oak-and-sj'camore-nlled. canons are the most 
beautiful of the South California canons ; though the 
soft, chaparral-walled canons would, in some lights, press 
them hard for supremacy of place. Nobody will ever, by 
pencil or brush or pen, fairly render the beauty of the 
mysterious, undefined, undefinable chaparral. Matted, 
tangled, twisted, piled, tufted, — everything is chaparral. 
All botany may be exhausted in describing it in one place, 
and it will not avail 3^011 in another. But in all places, 
and made up of whatever hundreds of shrubs it may be, 
it is the most exquisite carpet surface that Nature has to 
show for mountain fronts or canon sides. Not a color 
that it does not take ; not a bloom that it cannot rival ; 
a bank of cloud cannot be softer, or a bed of flowers more 
varied of hue. Some da}', between 1900 and 2000, when 
South California is at leisure and has native artists, she 
will have an artist of canons, whose life and love and 



OUTDOOR INDUSTRIES IN CALIFORNIA. 27 

j work will be spent in picturing them, — the royal oak can- 
ji opies ; the herculean sycamores ; the chameleon, velvety 
' chaparral ; and the wild, throe-built, water-quarried rock 
| gorges, with their myriad ferns and flowers. 

At the head of Mr. Cooper's canon are broken and jut- 
| ting sandstone walls, over three hundred feet high, draped 
; with mosses and ferns and all manner of vines. I saw 
i the dainty thalictruni, with its clover-like leaves, standing 
in thickets there, fresh and green, its blossoms nearly out 
on the first da}* of February. Looking down from these 
heights over the whole of the ranch, one sees for the first 
time the completeness of its beauty. The eucalyptus 
belts have been planted in every instance solely with a 
view to utility, — either as wind-breaks to keep off known 
special wind-currents from orchard or grain-field, or to 
make use of gorge sides too steep for other cultivation. 
Yet, had the} T been planted with sole reference to land- 
scape effects, they could not better have fallen into place. 
Even out to the very ocean edge the groves run, their pur- 
ples and greens melting into the purples and greens of the 
sea when it is dark and when it is sunny blue, — making 
harmonious lines of color, leading up from it to the soft 
grays of the olive and the bright greens of the walnut or- 
chards and wheat-fields. When the almond trees are in 
bloom, the eucalyptus belts are perhaps most superb of all, 
with their dark spears and plumes waving above and 
around the white and rosy acres. 

The leading industry of this ranch is to be the making 
of olive oil. Already its oil is known and sought ; and to 
taste it is a revelation to palates accustomed to the com- 
pounds of rancid cocoanut and cotton-seed with which the 
markets are full. The olive industry will no doubt ulti- 
mately be one of the great industries of the whole coun- 
try : vast tracts of land which are not suitable or do not 
command water enough for orange, grape, or grain cul- 
ture, affording ample support to the thrifty and unexacting 
olive. The hill-slopes around San Diego, and along the 
coast line for forty or fifty miles up, will no doubt one day 
be as thickly planted with olives as is the Mediterranean 
shore. Italy's olive crop is worth thirty million dollars 
annually, and California has as much land suited to the 
olive as Italy has. 



28 CALIFORNIA AND OREGON. 

The tree is propagated from cuttings, begins to bear the 
fourth year, and is in full bearing by the tenth or twelfth. 
One hundred and ten can be planted to an acre. Their en- 
durance is enormous. Some of the orchards planted by the 
friars at the missions over a hundred years ago are still 
bearing, spite of scores of years of neglect ; and there are 
records of trees in Nice having borne for several centuries. 

The process of oil-making is an interesting spectacle, 
under Mr. Cooper's oak trees. The olives are first dried 
in trays with slat bottoms, tiers upon tiers of these being 
piled in a kiln over a furnace fire. Then they are ground 
between stone rollers, worked In* huge wheels, turned b} r 
horse-power. The oil, thus pressed out, is poured into 
huge butts or tanks. Here it has to stand and settle three 
or four months. There are faucets at different levels in 
these butts, so as to draw off different layers of oil. After I 
it has settled sufficiently, it is filtered through six layers of 
cotton batting, then through one of French paper, before it 
is bottled. It is then of a delicate straw color, with a slight 
greenish tint, — not at all of the golden yellow of the ordi- 
nary market article. That golden yellow and the thicken- 
ing in cold are sure proofs of the presence of cotton-seed 
in oil, — the pure oil remaining limpid in a cold which will 
turn the adulterated oils white and thick. It is estimated 
that an acre of olives in full bearing will pa}* fifteen hun- 
dred dollars a year if pickled, and two thousand dollars a 
year made into oil. 

In observing the industries of South California and 
studying their history, one never escapes from an under- 
current of wonder that there should be an}' industries or 
industry there. No winter to be prepared for ; no fixed 
time at which anything must be done or not clone at all ; 
the air sunny, balmy, dreamy, seductive, making the mere 
being alive in it a pleasure ; all sorts of fruits and grains 
growing a-riot, and taking care of themselves, — it is eas} T 
to understand the character, or, to speak more accurately, 
the lack of character, of the old Mexican and Spanish 
Californians. 

There was a charm in it, however. Simply out of sun- 
shine, there had distilled in them an Orientalism as fine in 
its way as that made in the East by generations of prophets, 
crusaders, and poets. 



OUTDOOR INDUSTRIES IN CALIFORNIA. 29 

With no more curiosity than was embodied in "Who 
knows ? " — with no thought or purpose for a future more 
defined than "Some other time; not to-day," — without 
j greeds, and with the unlimited generosities of children, — 
\ no wonder that to them the restless, inquisitive, insatiable, 
| close-reckoning Yankee seemed the most intolerable of all 
I conquerors to whom they could surrender. One can fancy 
j them shuddering, even in heaven, as they look down to-day 
1 on his colonies, his railroads, his crops, — their whole land 
l humming and buzzing with his industries. 

One questions also whether, as the generations move on, 
the atmosphere of life in the sunny empire the}* lost will 
not revert more and more to their t3~pe, and be less and 
less of the t}*pe they so disliked. Unto the third and 
! fourth generation, perhaps, pulses ma} T keep up the tireless 
! Yankee beat ; but sooner or later there is certain to come 
a slacking, a toning clown, and a readjusting of standards 
and habits by a scale in which money and work will not 
be the highest values. This is "as sure as that the sun 
shines," for it is the sun that will bring it about. 



FATHER JUNIPERO AND HIS WORK. 

A SKETCH OF THE FOUNDATION, PROSPERITY, AND RUIN OF THE 
FRANCISCAN MISSIONS IN CALIFORNIA. 

I. 

During the years when Saint Francis went up and down 
the streets of Assisi, carrying in his delicate unused hands 
the stones for rebuilding St. Damiano, he is said to have 
been continually singing psalms, breaking forth into ejac- 
ulations of gratitude ; his face beaming as that of one who 
saw visions of unspeakable delight. How much of the 
spirit or instinct of prophecy there might have been in his 
exultant jo}~, only he himself knew ; but it would have 
been strange if there had not been vouchsafed to him at 
least a partial revelation of the splendid results which must 
of necessity follow the carrying out, in the world, of the 
divine impulses which had blazed up in his soul like a fire. 
As Columbus, from the trend of imperfectly known shores 
and tides, from the mysterious indications of vague 11 n- 
tracked winds, could deduce the glorious certainty of hith- 
erto undreamed continents of westward land, so might 
the ardent spiritual discoverer see with inextinguishable 
faith the hitherto undreamed heights which must be surely 
reached and won by the path he pointed out. It is 
certain that very early in his career he had the purpose 
of founding an order whose members, being unselfish in 
life, should be fit heralds of God and might}' helpers of 
men. The absoluteness of self-renunciation which he in- 
culcated and demanded startled even the thirteenth cen- 
tury's standard of religious devotion. Cardinals and pope 
alike doubted its being within the pale of human possibilit} 7 ; 
and it was not until after much entreaty that the Church 
gave its sanction to the "Seraphic Saint's" band of 



FATHER JUNIPERO AND HIS WORK. 31 

"Fratri Minores," and the organized work of the Fran- 
ciscan Order began. This was in 1208. From then till 
now, the Franciscans have been, in the literal sense of the 
word, benefactors of men. Other of the orders in the 
Catholic Church have won more distinction, in the wa} r of 
learning, political power, marvellous suffering of penances 
and deprivation ; but the record of the Franciscans is in 
the main a record of lives and work, like the life and work 
of their founder; of whom a Protestant biographer has 
written : " So far as can be made out, he thought little of 
himself, even of his own soul to be saved, all his life. 
The trouble had been on his mind how sufficiently to 
work for God and to help men." 

Under the head of helping men, come all enterprises of 
discovery, development, and civilization which the earth 
has known ; and in man}- more of these than the world 
generally suspects, has been an influence dating back to 
the saint of Assisi. America most pre-eminently stands 
his debtor. Of the three to whom belongs the glory of its 
discovery, one, Juan Perez de Marchena, was a Francis- 
can friar ; the other two, Queen Isabella and Columbus, 
were members of Saint Francis's Third Order ; and of all 
the splendid promise and wondrous development on the 
California coast to-da3 T , Franciscan friars were the first 
founders. 

In the Franciscan College at Santa Barbara is a da- 
guerreotj^pe, taken from an old portrait which was painted 
more than a hundred years ago, at the College of San 
Fernando, in Mexico. The face is one, once seen, never 
to be forgotten ; full of spirituality and tenderness and 
unutterable pathos ; the mouth and chin so delicately 
sensitive that one marvels how such a soul could have 
been capable of heroic endurance of hardship ; the fore- 
head and eyes strong, and radiant with quenchless purpose, 
but filled with that solemn, 3'earning, almost superhuman 
sadness, which has in all time been the sign and seal on 
the faces of men born to die for the sake of their fellows. 
It is the face of Father Junipero Serra, the first founder of 
Franciscan missions in South California. Studying the 
lineaments of this countenance, one recalls the earliest 
authentic portrait of Saint Francis, — the one painted by 
Pisano, which hangs in the sacristv of the Assisi church. 



32 CALIFORNIA AND OREGON. 

There seems a notable likeness between the two faces : the 
small and delicate features, the broad forehead, and the ex- 
pression of great gentleness are the same in both. But the 
saint had a joyousness which his illustrious follower never 
knew. The gayet} r of the troubadour melodies which 
Francis sung all through his 3'outh never left his soul : but 
Serra's first and only songs were the solemn chants of the 
Church ; his first lessons were received in a convent ; his 
earliest desire and hope was to become a priest. 

Serra was born of lowiy people in the island of Majorca, 
and while he was yet a little child sang as chorister in the 
convent of San Bernardino. He was but sixteen when he 
entered the Franciscan Order, and before he was eighteen 
he had taken the final vows. This was in the year 1730. 
His baptismal name, Michael Joseph, he laid aside on be- 
coming a monk, and took the name of Junipero, after that 
quaintest and drollest of all Saint Francis's first compan- 
ions ; him of whom the saint said jocosely, " Would that 
I had a whole forest of such Junipers ! " 

Studying in the Majorca Convent at the same time 
with Serra, were three other young monks, beloved and 
intimate companions of his, — Palon, Verger, and Crespi. 
The friendship thus early begun never waned ; and the 
heart} 7 and loving co-operation of the four had much 
to do with the success of the great enterprises in which 
afterward they jointly labored, and to which, even in 
their student da} r s, they looked forward with passionate 
longing. New Spain was, from the beginning, the goal of 
their most ardent wishes. All their conversations turned 
on this theme. Long years of delay and monastic routine 
did not dampen the ardor of the four friends. Again and 
again they petitioned to be sent as missionaries to the New 
World, and again and again were disappointed. At last, 
in 1749, there assembled in Cadiz a great body of mission- 
aries, destined chiefly for Mexico ; and Serra and Palon 
received permission to join the band. Arriving at Cadiz, 
and finding two vacancies still left in the party, they pleaded 
warmly that Crespi and Verger be allowed to go also. At 
the very last moment this permission was given, and the 
four friends joyfully set sail in the same ship. 

It is impossible at this distance of time to get any com- 
plete realization of the halo of exalted sentiment and rap- 



FATHER JUNIPERO AND HIS WORK. 33 

ture which then invested undertakings of this kind. From 
the highest to the lowest, the oldest to the youngest, it 
reached. Every art was lent to its service, every channel 
of expression stamped with its sign. Even on the rude 
atlases and charts of the da}' were pictures of monks em- 
barking in ships of discovery ; the Virgin herself looking 
on from the sky, with the motto above, " Matre Dei rnon- 
travit via;" and on the ships' sails, " Unus non suffieit 
orbis." 

In the memoir of Father Junipero, written by his friend 
Palon, are many interesting details of his vo} r age to Vera 
Cruz. It lasted ninety-nine daj-s : provisions fell short ; 
starvation threatened ; terrific storms nearly wrecked the 
ship ; but through all, Father Junipero's courage never 
failed. He said, "remembering the end for which they 
had come," he felt no fear. He performed mass each 
morning, and with psalms and exhortations cheered the 
sinking spirits of all on board. 

For nineteen years after their arrival in Mexico, Father 
Junipero and his three friends were kept at work 
there, under the control of the College of San Fernando, 
in founding missions and preaching. On the suppression 
of the Jesuit Order, in 1767, and its consequent expulsion 
from all the Spanish dominions, it was decided to send a 
band of Franciscans to California, to take charge of the 
Jesuit missions there. These were all in Lower California, 
no attempt at settlement having been yet made in Upper 
California. 

Once more the friends, glad and exultant, joined a mis- 
sionary band bound to new wildernesses. They were but 
three now, Verger remaining behind in the College of San 
Fernando. The band numbered sixteen. Serra was put 
in charge of it, and was appointed president of all the 
California missions. His biographer sa^ys he received this 
appointment "unable to speak a single word for tears." 
It was not strange, on the realization of a hope so long 
deferred. He was now fifty-six 3'ears old ; and from boy- 
hood his longing had been to labor among the Indians on 
the western shores of the New World. 

It was now the purpose of the Spanish Government to 
proceed as soon as possible to the colonization of Upper 
California. The passion of the Church allied itself gladly 

3 



34 CALIFORNIA AND OREGON. 

with the purpose of the State ; and the State itself had 
among its statesmen and soldiers man}' men who were 
hardly less fervid in religion than were those sworn exclu- 
sively to the Church's service. Such an one was Joseph 
de Galvez, who held the office of Visitor-General and 
Commander, representing the person of the King, and in- 
specting the working of the Government in every province 
of the Spanish Empire. Upon him rested the responsi- 
bility of the practical organization of the first expedition 
into Upper California. It was he who ordered the carry- 
ing of all sorts of seeds of vegetables, grains, and flow- 
ers ; everything that would grow in Old Spain he ordered 
to be planted in New. He ordered that two hundred head 
of cattle should be taken from the northernmost of the 
Lower California missions, and carried to the new posts. 
It was he also, as full of interest for chapel as for farm, 
who selected and packed with his own hands sacred orna- 
ments and vessels for church ceremonies. A curious let- 
ter of his to Palon is extant, in which he says laughingly 
that he is a better sacristan than Father Junipero, having 
packed the hoi}' vessels and ornaments quicker and better 
than he. There are also extant some of his original in- 
structions to military and naval commanders which show 
his religious ardor and wisdom. He declares that the first 
object of the expedition is "to establish the Catholic re- 
ligion among a numerous heathen people, submerged in 
the obscure darkness of paganism, to extend the dominion 
of the King our Lord, and to protect this peninsula from 
the ambitious views of foreign nations." 

With no clearer knowledge than could be derived from 
scant records of Viscayno's vo}*age in 1602, he selected 
the two best and most salient points of the California 
coast, San Diego and Monterey, and ordered the found- 
ing of a mission at each. He also ordered the selection 
of a point midwa}'-between these two, for another mission 
to be called Buena Ventura. His activity, generosity, and 
enthusiasm were inexhaustible. - He seems to have had hu- 
mor as well ; for when discussing the names of the mis- 
sions to be founded, Father Junipero said to him, " But 
is there to be no mission for our Father St. Francis?" 
he replied, " If St. Francis wants a mission, let him show 
us his post, and we will put one there for him ! " 



FATHER JUNIPERO AND HIS WORK. 35 

The records of this first expedition into California are 
full of interest. It was divided into two parts, one to go 
by sea, and one by land ; the sea party in two ships, and 
the land party in two divisions. Every possible precau- 
tion and provision was thought of by the wise Galvez ; 
but neither precaution nor provision could make the jour- 
ney other than a terrible one. Father Junipero, with his 
characteristic ardor, insisted on accompairying one of the 
land parties, although he was suffering severely from an 
inflamed leg, the result of an injury he had received twenty 
years before in journeying on foot from Vera Cruz to the 
city of Mexico. Galvez tried in vain to detain him ; he 
said he would rather die on the road than not go, but that 
he should not die, for the Lord would cany him through. 
However, on the second day out, his pain became so great 
that he could neither sit, stand, nor sleep. Portala, the 
military commander of the party, implored him to be car- 
ried in a litter ; but this he could not brook. Calling one 
of the muleteers to him, he said, — 

" Son, do } T ou not know some remedy for this sore on 
my leg?" 

"Father," replied the muleteer, "what remedy can I 
know? I have only cured beasts." 

" Then consider me a beast," answered Serra ; " consider 
this sore on my leg a sore back, and give me the same 
treatment you would apply to a beast." 

Thus adjured, the muleteer took courage, and saying, 
" I will do it, Father, to please }'ou," he proceeded to mix 
herbs in hot tallow, with which he anointed the wound, 
and so reduced the inflammation that Father Junipero 
slept all night, rose early, said matins and mass, and re- 
sumed his journey in comparative comfort. He bore this 
painful wound to the end of his life ; and it was charac- 
teristic of the man as well as of the abnormal standards of 
the age, that he not onlv sought no measures for a radical 
cure of the diseased member, but, obstinately accepting 
the suffering as a cross, allowed the trouble to be aggra- 
vated in every wa}~, by going without shoes or stockings 
and by taking long journej's on foot. 

A diary kept by Father Crespi on his toilsome march 
from Velicata to San Diego is full of quaint and curious en- 
tries, monotonous in its religious reiterations, but touching 



36 CALIFORNIA AND OREGON. 

in its simplicity and unconscious testimony to his own 
single-heartedness and patience. The nearest approach to 
a complaint he makes is to say that ''nothing abounds 
except stones and thorns." When they journey for days 
with no water except scant}^ rations from the precious 
casks they are carrying, he always piously trusts water 
will be found on the morrow ; and when they come to 
great tracts of impenetrable cactus thickets, through which 
the}' are obliged to hew a pathway with axes, as through a 
forest, and are drenched to the skin in cold rains, and 
deserted by the Christian Indians whom they had brought 
from Lower California as guides, he mentions the facts 
without a murmur, and has even for the deserters only a 
benediction : " Ma} r God guard the misguided ones ! " A 
far more serious grievance to him is that toward the end of 
the journey he could no longer celebrate full mass because 
the wafers had given out. Sometimes the party found 
themselves hemmed in by mountains, and were forced 
to halt for days while scouts went ahead to find a pass. 
More than once, hoping that at last they had found a 
direct and easy route, the}' struck down to the sea-shore, 
only to discover themselves soon confronted by impassable 
spurs of the Coast Range, and forced to toil back again up 
into the labyrinths of mesas and cactus plains. It was 
Holy Thursday, the 24th of March, when they set out, 
and it was not until the 13th of May that they reached the 
high ground from which they' had their first view of the 
bay of San Diego, and saw the masts of the ships lying at 
anchor there, — " which sight was a great }oy and consola- 
tion to us all," says the diary. 

They named this halting- place " Espiritu Santo." It 
must have been on, or very near, the ridge where now 
runs the boundary line between the United States and 
Mexico, as laid down by the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. 
It is a grand promontoiy, ten miles southeast of San 
Diego, thrusting out to sea ; bare of trees, but matted 
thick with the dewy ice-plant, and in early spring carpeted 
with flowers. An ugly monument of stone stands there, 
bearing the names of the American and Mexican commis- 
sioners who established this boundary line in October, 1849. 
It would seem much more fitting to have there a monument 
bearing the names of the heroic men — friars and soldiers 



FATHER JUNIPERO AND HIS WORK. 37 

of Spain — who on that spot, on May 14, 1769, sang the 
first Easter lrymn heard on California shores. 

It was a sore grief for Father Crespi that the command- 
ant of the party would not wait here for him to sa} T a 
mass of thanksgiving ; but with the port in sight, impa- 
tience could not be restrained, and the little band pushed 
on. As soon as the San Diego camp was seen, the 
soldiers discharged a salute of fire-arms, which was an- 
swered instantly from shore and ship. Great joy filled 
every heart. The friars who had come b} 7 sea ran to meet 
and embrace their brothers. The gladness was dampened 
only by the sad condition of the ships' crews, man}' of 
whom were dead or dying. They had been four months, 
with their poor charts and poorer ships, making their way 
from La Paz up to San Diego ; and in consequence of insuf- 
ficient and unwholesome food, the scurvy had broken out 
among them. It was a melancholy beginning for the new 
enterprise. When, six weeks later, the second land party 
w r ith Father Junipero arrived, eager to proceed to the es- 
tablishing of the mission, they found that their first duty 
was to the sick and dying of their own people. In fifteen 
days twenty-nine of the sailors and soldiers died. The In- 
dians, who at first had been gentle and friendly, grew each 
day more insolent and thievish, even tearing off the clothes 
of the sick lying helpless in the tents or tnle huts on the 
beach. At last, on the 16th of Julv, a cross was set up 
facing the port, and in a rude booth of branches and 
reeds, mass was celebrated and the grand hymn of "Veni 
Creator" was sung, the pilgrims "supplying the want 
of an organ by discharging fire-arms," says the old record, 
and with only the " smoke of muskets for incense." Thus 
was founded the Mission of San Diego ; and thus was 
laid the corner-stone of the civilization of California on 
July 16, 1769. 

Two clays before this the indefatigable Crespi had set off 
with another overland party, Portala at its head, to find 
Monterey. On this journe}*, also, Father Crespi kept a 
diary, — little suspecting, probably, with how much in- 
terest it would be studied a century later. It was not 
strange that with only a compass and seventeenth-century 
charts to guide them along the zigzagging labj-rinths of 
bays, headlands, and sand-hills which make the California 



38 CALIFORNIA AND OREGON 

shore, they toiled to no purpose seeking the Monterey 
harbor. It is pitiful to read the record of the days when 
the}' were close upon it, setting up a cross on one of its hills, 
and yet could not see it; even querying, so bewildered 
and lost were the}', if it might not have been filled up with 
sands since Viscayno's time. Fort}' leagues north of it 
they went, and discovered the present bay of San Francisco, 
which they at once recognized by Viscayno's description ; 
and recalling the speech of Galvez in regard to Saint 
Francis pointing out a port if he wanted a mission of his 
own name, the pious fathers thought it not unlikely that 
the saint himself had hidden Monterey from their sight, 
and led them to his own harbor. Month after month 
passed, and still they were wandering. They were foot- 
sore, weary, hungry, but not disheartened. Friendly In- 
dians everywhere greeted them kindly, gave them nuts, 
and shell-fish, and bread made from acorn flour. At one 
time seventeen of the party were too ill to travel. Twice 
they halted and held council on the question of abandoning 
the search. Some were ready to continue as long as the 
provisions held out, then to eat their mules, and go back 
on foot. Fathers Crespi and Gomez volunteered to be 
left behind alone. 

At last, on the 11th of November, it was decided to 
return by the route by which they had come. On the 
20th, finding that their flour had been stolen by the sol- 
diers, they divided the remainder into equal parts, giving 
to each person enough to last him two days. On Christ- 
mas Day they had a present of nuts from friendly Indians, 
and on New Year's Day they had the luck to kill a bear 
and three cubs, which gave them a feast for which they 
offered most devout thanksgivings. For the rest, they 
lived chiefly on mussels, with now and then a wild goose. 
On the 24th of January they came out on the table-lands 
above San Diego, six months and ten days from the time 
of their departure. Firing a salute, they were answered 
instantly by shots from the camp, and saw an eager crowd 
running to meet them, great anxiety having been felt at 
their long absence. 

It is worth while, in studying the history of these Fran- 
ciscan missions, to dwell on the details of the hardships 
endured in the beginning by their founders. Only narrow- 



FATHER JUNIPERO AND HIS WORK. 39 

minded bigotiy can fail to see in them proofs of a spiritual | 
enthusiasm and exaltation of self-sacrifice which are rarely 
paralleled in the world's history. And to do justice to the 
results accomplished, it is necessary to understand thor- 
oughly the conditions at the outset of the undertaking. 

The weary, returned part}' found their comrades in 
sorry plight. The scurvy had spread, and many more 
had died. Father Junipero himself had been dangerously 
ill with it ; provisions were running low ; the Indians 
were only half friendly, and w r ere not to be trusted out 
of sight. The supply-ships looked for from Mexico had 
not arrived. 

A situation more helpless, unprotected, discouraging, 
could not be conceived than that of this little, suffering 
band, separated by leagues of desert and leagues of ocean 
from all possible succor. At last an examination showed 
that there were only provisions sufficient left to subsist the 
party long enough to make the journe} T back to Velicata. 
It seemed madness to remain longer ; and Governor Por- 
tala, spite of Father Junipero's entreaties, gave orders to 
prepare for the abandonment of the missions. He fixed 
the 20th of March as the last day he would wait for the 
arrival of the ship. This was Saint Joseph's Daj\ On the 
morning of it Father Junipero, who had been praying 
night and da} r for weeks, celebrated to Saint Joseph a high 
mass, with special supplications for relief. Before noon a 
sail was seen on the horizon. One does not need to believe 
in saints and saints' interpositions to feel a thrill at this 
coincidence, and in fancying the effect the sudden vision 
of the relief-ship must have produced on the minds of 
devout men who had been starving. The ship appeared 
for a few moments, then disappeared ; doubtless there 
were some who scoffed at it as a mere apparition. But 
Portala believed, and waited ; and, four days later, in the 
ship came ! — the " San Antonio," bringing bountiful stores 
of all that was needed. 

Courage and cheer now filled the very air. No time 
was lost in organizing expeditions to go once more in 
search of the mysteriously hidden Montere}\ In less than 
three weeks two parties had set off, — one by sea in the 
" San Antonio." With this went Father Junipero, still fee- 
ble from illness. Father Crespi, undaunted by his former 



40 CALIFORNIA AND OREGON. 

six months of wandering, joined the land party, reaching 
the Point of Pines, on Monterey Harbor, seven days 
before the ship arrived. As soon as she came in sight, 
bonfires were lighted on the rocks, and the ship answered 
b}' firing cannon. It was a great rejoicing. The next 
da3 T , June 1st, the officers of the two parties met, and 
exchanged congratulations ; and on the third the}' took 
formal possession of the place : first, in the name of the 
Church, by religious ceremonies ; secondly, in the name 
of the King of Spain, unfurling the royal standard, and 
planting it in the ground, side by side with the cross. 

To one familiar with the beauty of the Monterey shore 
in June, the picture of this scene is vivid. The sand-dunes 
were ablaze with color ; lupines in high, waving masses, 
white and yellow ; and great mats of the glittering ice- 
plant, with myriads of rose-colored umbels, lying flat on 
the white sand. Many rods inland, the air was sweet with 
their fragrance, borne b}- the strong sea-wind. On long 
cliffs of broken, tempest-piled rocks stood ranks upon ranks 
of grand old cypress-trees, — gnarled, bent, twisted, defi- 
ant, full of both pathos and triumph in their loneliness, in 
this the only spot on earth to which they are native. 

The booth of boughs in which the mass was performed 
was built under a large oak, on the same spot where Vis- 
cayno had landed and his Carmelite monks had said mass 
one lmndred and sixty-seven }~ears before. The ceremo- 
nies closed with a ringing Te Deum, — sailors, soldiers, 
monks, alike jubilant. 

When the news of the founding of this second mission 
reached the cit}* of Mexico, there was a furore of excite- 
ment. The bells of the city were rung ; people ran up and 
down the streets telling each other ; and the viceroy held 
at his palace a grand reception, to which went all persons 
of note, eager to congratulate him and Galvez. Printed 
proclamations, giving full accounts, were circulated, not 
only in Mexico but throughout Spain. No province so 
remote, no home so lowly, as to fail to hear the good news. 
It was indeed good news to both State and Church. The 
fact of the occupation of the new country was accom- 
plished ; the scheme for the conversion and salvation of 
the savage race was fairly inaugurated ; Monterey and San 
Diego being assured, ultimate possession of the whole of 



FATHER JUNIPERO AND HIS WORK. 41 

the coast line between would follow. Little these glad- 
dened people in Spain and Mexico realized, however, the 
cost of the triumph over which the} T rejoiced, or the true 
condition of the men who had won it. 

The history of the next fifteen years is a history of 
struggle, hardship, and heroic achievement. The inde- 
fatigable Serra was the mainspring and support of it all. 
There seemed no limit to his endurance, no bound to his 
desires; nothing daunted his courage or chilled his faith. 
When, in the sixth year after the founding of the San 
Diego Mission, it was attacked Lrv hostile Indians, one of 
the fathers being most cruelly murdered, and the buildings 
burned to the ground, Father Junipero exclaimed, "Thank 
Gocl ! The seed of the Gospel is now watered by the blood 
of a martyr ; that mission is henceforth established ; " and 
in a few months he was on the spot, with money and mate- 
rials, ready for rebuilding; pressing sailors, neophytes, 
soldiers, into the service ; working with his own hands, 
also, spite of the fears and protestations of all, and only 
desisting on positive orders from the military commander. 
He journe3~ed, frequently on foot, back and forth through 
the country, founding a new mission whenever, b}' his ur- 
gent letters to the College of San Fernando and to the Mex- 
ican viceroys, he had gathered together men and mone}' 
enough to do so. In 1772, when perplexities seemed inex- 
tricably thickened and supplies had fallen so short that 
starvation threatened the missions, he took ship to San 
Bias. With no companion except one Indian bo} T , he 
toiled on foot from San Bias to Guadalajara, two hundred 
and forty miles. Here they both fell ill of fever, and sank 
so low that they were supposed to be dying, and the Holy 
Viaticum was administered to them. But the} r recovered, 
and while only partly convalescent, pushed on again, reach- 
ing the chVy of Mexico in February, 1773. Hard-hearted 
indeed must the Mexican viceroy have been to refuse to 
heed the prayers of an aged man who had given such proofs 
as this of his earnestness and devotion. The difficulties 
were cleared up, money and supplies obtained, and Father 
Junipero returned to his post with a joyful heart. Before 
leaving, he kissed the feet of the friars in the college, and 
asked their blessing, saying that they would never behold 
him more. 



42 CALIFORNIA AND OREGON. 

Father Junipero's most insatiable passion was for bap- 
tizing Indians ; the saving of one soul thus from death 
filled him with unspeakable joy. His biographer illus- 
trates this by the narrative of the first infant baptism at- 
tempted at the San Diego Mission. The Indians had been 
prevailed upon to bring an infant to receive the consecra- 
tion. Everything was ready : Father Junipero had raised 
his hand to sprinkle the child's face ; suddenly heathen ter- 
ror got the better of the parents, and in the twinkling of 
an e}-e they snatched their babe and ran. Tears rolled 
down Father Junipero's cheeks : he declared that only 
some unworthiness in himself could have led to such a 
disaster ; and to the da}' of his death he could never tell 
the story without tears, thinking it must be owing to his 
sins that the soul of that particular child had been lost. 

When he preached he was carried out of himself by the 
fervor of his desire to impress his hearers. Baring his 
breast, he would beat it violently with a stone, or burn the 
flesh with a lighted torch, to enhance the effect of his de- 
scriptions of the tortures of hell. There is in his memoir a 
curious engraving, showing him lifted high above a motley 
group of listeners, holding in his hands the blazing torch 
and the stone. 

In the same book is an outline map of California as he 
knew it. It is of the coast line from San Diego to San 
Francisco, and the only objects marked on it are the mis- 
sions and dotted lines showing the roads leading from one 
to another. All the rest is a blank. 

There were nine of these missions, founded \>y Serra* 
before his death n 1784. They were founded in the fol- 
lowing order: San Diego, July 16, 1769; San Carlos de 
Monterey, June 3, 1770 ; San Antonio de Padua, July 14, 
1771 ; San Gabriel, Sept. 8, 1771 ; San Luis Obispo, Sept. 
1, 1772 ; San Francisco (Dolores), Oct. 9, 1776 ; San Juan 
Capistrano, Nov. 1, 1776 ; Santa Clara, Jan. 18, 1777 ; San 
Buena Ventura, March 31, 1782. 

The transports into which Father Junipero was thrown 
by the beginning of a new mission are graphically told by 
the companion who went with him to establish the mission 
of San Antonio. With his little train of soldiers, and 
mules laden with a few weeks' supplies, he wandered off 
into the unexplored wilderness sixty miles south of J\Ion- 



FATHER JUNIPERO AND HIS WORK. 43 

terey, looking eagerly for river valleys promising fertility. 
As soon as the beautiful oak-shaded plain, with its river 
swift and full even in Jury, caught his eye, he ordered a 
halt, seized the bells, tied them to an oak bough, and fell 
to ringing them with might and main, crying aloud : "Hear, 
hear, O 3'e Gentiles ! Come to the Holy Church ! Come to 
the faith of Jesus Christ ! " Not a human creature was in 
sight, save his own band ; and his companion remonstrated 
with him. "Let me alone," cried Father Junipero. "Let 
me unburden my heart, which could wish that this bell 
should be heard hy all the world, or at least by all the 
Gentiles in these mountains ; " and he rang on till the 
echoes answered, and one astonished Indian appeared, — 
the first instance in which a native had been present at the 
foundation of a mission. Not long afterward came a very 
aged Indian woman named Agreda, begging to be baptized, 
saying that she had seen a vision in the skies of a man 
clad like the friars, and that her father had repeated to her 
in her youth the same words they now spoke. 

The history of this San Antonio Mission justified Father 
Junipero's selection. The site proved one of the richest 
and most repaying, including, finally, seven large farms 
with a chapel on each, and being famous for the best wheat 
grown, and the best flour made in the country. The curi- 
ous mill in which the flour was ground is still to be seen, — 
a most interesting ruin. It was run by water brought in a 
stone-walled ditch for many miles, and driven through a 
funnel-shaped flume so as to strike the side of a large 
water-wheel, revolving horizontally on a shaft. The build- 
ing of this aqueduct and the placing of the wheel were 
the work of an Indian named Nolberto, who took the idea 
from the balance-wheel of a watch, and did all the work 
with his own hands. The walls are broken now ; and the 
sands have so blown in and piled around the entrance, that 
the old wheel seems buried in a cellar ; linnets have builded 
nests in the dusk} 7 corners, and are so seldom disturbed 
that their bright eyes gaze with placid unconcern at curious 
intruders. 

Many interesting incidents are recorded in connection 
with the establishment of these first missions. At San 
Gabriel the Indians gathered in great force, and were 
about to attack the little band of ten soldiers and two 



44 CALIFORNIA AND OREGON. 

I friars preparing to plant their cross ; but on the unfurling 

I of a banner with a life-size picture of the Virgin painted on 

\ it, the}' flung away their bows and arrows, came running 

toward the banner with gestures of reverence and delight, 

and threw their beads and other ornaments on the ground 

before it, as at the feet of a suddenly recognized queen. 

The San Gabriel Indians seem to have been a superior 
race. They spoke a soft, musical language, now nearly 
lost Their name for God signified "Giver of Life." 
They had no belief in a devil or in hell, and persisted 
always in regarding them as concerning only white men. 
Robbery was unknown among them, murder was punished 
by death, and marriage between those near of kin was not 
allowed. They had names for the points of the compass, 
and knew the North Star, calling it Runi. They had 
games at which they decked themselves with flower gar- 
lands, which wreathed their heads and hung down to their 
feet. They had certain usages of politeness, such as that 
a child, bringing water to an elder, must not taste it on the 
way ; and that to pass between two wiio were speaking- 
was an offence. The}' had song contests, often lasting 
many days, and sometimes handed down to the next gen- 
eration. To a people of such customs as these, the sym- 
bols, shows, and ceremonies of the Catholic Church must 
needs have seemed especially beautiful and winning. 

The records of the founding of these missions are simi- 
lar in details, but are full of interest to one in sympathy 
either with their spiritual or their historical significance. 
The routine was the same in all cases. A cross was set 
up ; a booth of branches was built ; the ground and the 
booth were consecrated hy hoi} 7 water, and christened by 
the name of a saint ; a mass was performed ; the neighbor- 
ing Indians, if there were airy, were roused and summoned 
by the ringing of bells swung on limbs of trees ; presents 
of cloth and trinkets were given them to inspire them 
with trust, and thus a mission was founded. Two monks 
(never, at first, more) were appointed to take charge of this 
cross and booth, and to win, baptize, convert, and teach 
all the Indians to be reached in the region. They had for 
guard and help a few soldiers, and sometimes a few already 
partly civilized and Christianized Indians ; several head of 
cattle, some tools and seeds, and holv vessels for the church 



FATHER JUN1PER0 AND HIS WORK. 45 

service, completed their store of weapons, spiritual and 
secular, offensive and defensive, with which to conquer the 
wilderness and its savages. There needs no work of the 
imagination to help this picture. Taken in its sternest 
realism, it is vivid and thrilling ; contrasting the wretched 
poverty of these single-handed beginnings with the fi?jal 
splendor and riches attained, the result seems wellnigh 
miraculous. 

From the rough booth of boughs and reeds of 1770 to 
the pillars, arched corridors, and domes of the stately 
stone churches of a half-century later, is a change only a 
degree less wonderful than the change in the Indian, from 
the naked savage with his one stone tool, grinding acorn- 
meal in a rock bowl, to the industrious tiller of soil, 
weaver of cloth, worker in metals, and singer of sacred 
hymns. The steps of this change were slow at first. In 
1772, at the end of five years' work, five missions had 
been founded, and four hundred and ninetj'-one Indians 
baptized. There were then, in these five missions, but 
nineteen friars and sixty soldiers. In 1786, La Perouse, 
a French naval commander, who vo}~aged along the Cali- 
fornia coast, leaves it on record that there were but two 
hundred and eighty-two soldiers, and about one hundred 
officers and friars, all told, in both Upper and Lower Cali- 
fornia, from Cape Saint Lucas to San Francisco, a line of 
eight hundred leagues. At this time there were five thou- 
sand one hundred and forty-three Indians, in the missions 
of Upper California alone. In the year 1800 there were, 
at the mission of San Diego, fifteen hundred and twenty- 
one Indians ; and the San Diego garrison, three miles 
away from the mission, numbered only one hundred and 
sixty-seven souls, — officers, soldiers, servants, women, 
and children. Such figures as these seem sufficient refu- 
tation of the idea sometimes advanced, that the Indians 
were converted by force and -held in subjection by terror. 
There is still preserved, in the archives of the Franciscan 
College at Santa Barbara, a letter written by Father Juni- 
pero to the Viceroy of Mexico, in 1776, imploring him to 
send a force of eighty soldiers to be divided among seven 
missions. He patiently explains that the friars, stationed 
by twos, at new missions, from sixty to a hundred miles 
distant from each other, cannot be expected to feel safe 



46 CALIFORNIA AND OREGON. 

without a reasonable militarj^ protection ; and he asks per- 
tinent^ what defence could be made, "in case the enenry 
should tempt the Gentiles to attack us." That there was 
so little active hostility on the part of the savage tribes, 
that they looked so kindly as they did to the ways and re- 
straints of the new life, is the strongest possible proof that 
the methods of the friars in dealing with them must have 
been both wise and humane. 

During the first six 3'ears there was but one serious out- 
break, — that at San Diego. No retaliation was shown to- 
ward the Indians for this ; on the contrary, the orders of 
both friars and military commanders were that the}' should 
be treated with even greater kindness than before ; and in 
less than two 3'ears the mission buildings were rebuilt, 
under a guard of onry a half-score of soldiers with hun- 
dreds of Indians looking on, and many helping cheerfully 
in the work. The San Carlos Mission at Monterey was 
Father Junipero's own charge. There he spent all his 
time, when not called away by his duties as president of 
the missions. There he died, and there he was buried. 
Thqre, also, his beloved friend and brother, Father Crespi, 
labored hy his side for thirteen years. Crespi was a san- 
guine, joyous man, sometimes called El Beato, from his 
happ3 r temperament. No doubt his gayety made Serra's 
sunshine in man} 7 a dark day ; and grief at his death did 
much to break down the splendid old man's courage and 
strength. Only a few months before it occurred, they had 
gone together for a short visit to their comrade, Father 
Palon, at the San Francisco Mission. When they took 
leave of him, Crespi said, "Farewell forever; 3*011 will 
see me no more." This was late in the autumn of 1781, 
and on New Year's Day, 1782, he died, aged sixty years, 
and having spent half of those 3'ears in laboring for the 
Indians. Serra lived only two 3'ears longer, and is said 
never to have been afterwards the same as before. For 
many 3 T ears he had been a great sufferer from an affection 
of the heart, — aggravated, if not induced, by his fierce 
beatings of his breast with a stone while he was preach- 
ing. But physical pain seemed to make no impression on 
his mind. If it did not incapacitate him for action, he 
held it of no account. Only the 3'ear before his, death, 
being then sevent3~ years old, and very lame, he had jour- 



FATHER JUNIPERO AND HIS WORK. 47 

ne3'ed on foot from San Diego to Monterey, visiting every 
mission and turning aside into all the Indian settlements 
on the way. At this time there were on the Santa Bar- 
bara coast alone, within a space of eighty miles, twenty- 
one villages of Indians, roughly estimated as containing 
between twenty and thirty thousand souls. He is said to 
have gone weeping from village to village because he 
could do nothing for them. 

He reached San Carlos in January, 1784, and never 
again went awa}\ The story of his last hours and death is 
in the old church records of Montere}', written there by 
the hand of the sorrowing Palon, the second day after he 
had closed his friend's eyes. It is a quaint and touching 
narrative. 

Up to the day before his death, his indomitable will up- 
holding the failing strength of his dying body, Father 
Junipero had read in the church the canonical offices of 
each day, a service requiring an hour and a half of time. 
The evening before his death he walked alone to the 
church to receive the last sacrament. The church was 
crowded to overflowing with Indians and whites, many 
crying aloud in uncontrollable grief. 

Father Junipero knelt before the altar with great fervor 
of manner, while Father Palon, with tears rolling down 
his cheeks, read the services for the dying, gave him abso- 
lution, and administered the Hol} T Viaticum. Then rose 
from choked and tremulous voices the strains of the grand 
hymn " Tantum Ergo," — 

" Tantum ergo Sacramentum 

Veneremur cernui, 
Et antiquum documentum 

Novo eedat ritui ; 
Prasstet fides supplementum 

Sensuum defectui. 

" Genitori genitoque 

Laus et jubilatio, 
Salus, honor, virtus quoque 

Sit et benedictio ; 
Procedenti ab utroque 

Compar sit laudatio." 

A startled thrill ran through the church as Father Ju- 
nipero's own voice, "high and strong as ever," says the 



48 CALIFORNIA AND OREGON. 

record, joined in the hymn. One by one the voices of 
his people broke down, stifled by sobs, until at last the 
dying man's voice, almost alone, finished the hymn. Af- 
ter this he gave thanks, and returning to his cell-like 
room spent the whole of the night in listening to peni- 
tential psalms and litanies, and giving thanks to God ; all 
the time kneeling or sitting on the ground supported by 
the loving and faithful Palon. In the morning, early, 
he asked for the plenary indulgence, for which he again 
knelt, and confessed again. At noon the chaplain and 
the captain of the bark wt St. Joseph," then lying in port 
at Monterey, came to visit him. He welcomed them, and 
cordially embracing the chaplain, said, '* You have come 
just in time to cast the earth upon my body." After they 
took their leave, he asked Palon to read to him again the 
Recommendations of the Soul. At its conclusion he re- 
sponded earnestly, in as clear voice as in health, adding, 
" Thank God, I am now without fear." Then with a firm 
step he walked to the kitchen, saying that he would like a 
cup of broth. As soon as he had taken the broth, he 
exclaimed, "I feel better now; I will rest;" and lying 
down he closed his eyes, and without another word or 
sign of straggle or pain ceased to breathe, entering in- 
deed into a rest of which his last word had been solemnly 
prophetic. 

Ever since morning the grief-stricken people had been 
waiting and listening for the tolling death-bell to announce 
that all was over. At its first note they came in crowds, 
breathless, weeping, and lamenting. It was with great 
difficult}' that the soldiers could keep them from tearing 
Father Junipero's habit piecemeal from his body, so ar- 
dent was their desire to possess some relic of him. The 
corpse was laid at once in a coffin which he himself had 
ordered made many weeks before. The vessels in port 
fired a salute of one hundred and one guns, answered by 
the same from the guns of the presidio at Monterey, — an 
honor given to no one below the rank of general. But 
the hundred gun salutes were a paltry honor in compari- 
son with the tears of the Indian congregation. Soldiers 
kept watch around his coffin night and da}' till the burial ; 
but the}' could not hold back the throngs of the poor crea- 
tures who pressed to touch the hand of the father they 



FATHER JUN1PER0 AND HIS WORK. 49 

had so much loved, and to bear away something, if only a 
thread, of the garments he had worn. 

His ardent and impassioned nature and his untiring la- 
bors had won their deepest affection and confidence. It 
was his habit when at San Carlos to spend all his time 
with them, working by their side in the fields, making 
adobe, digging, tilling, doing, in short, all that he required 
of them. Day after clay he thus labored, onry desisting 
at the hours for performing offices in the church. When- 
ever an Indian came to address him, he made the sign of 
the cross on his forehead, and spoke to him some words of 
spiritual injunction or benediction . The arbitrariness — or, 
as some of his enemies called it, haughty self-will — which 
brought Serra at times into conflict with the military au- 
thorities when their purposes or views clashed with his 
own, never came to the surface in his spiritual functions, 
or in his relation with the Indian converts. He loved 
them, and yearned over them as brands to be snatched 
from the burning. He had baptized over one thousand of 
them with his own hands ; his whole life he spent for them, 
and was ready at any moment to lay it down if that would 
have benefited them more. Absolute single-heartedness 
like this is never misunderstood bj~, and never antagonizes 
equally single-hearted people, either high or low. But to 
be absolutely single-hearted in a moral purpose is almost 
inevitably to be doggedly one-ideaed in regard to practical 
methods ; and the single-hearted, one-ideaed man, with a 
great moral purpose, is sure to be often at swords' points 
with average men of selfish interests and mixed notions. 
This is the explanation of the fact that the later }'ears of 
Serra's life were marred by occasional collisions with the 
military authorities in the country. No doubt the impetu- 
osity of his nature made him sometimes hot in resentment 
and indiscreet of speech. But in spite of these failings, 
he }*et remains the foremost, grandest figure in the mis- 
sions' histoiy. If his successors in their administration 
had been equal to him in spirituality, enthusiasm, and in- 
tellect, the mission establishments would never have been 
so utterly overthrown and ruined. 

Father Junipero sleeps on the spot where he labored and 
died. His grave is under the ruins of the beautiful stone 
church of his mission, — the church which he saw only 

4 



50 CALIFORNIA AND OREGON. 

in ardent and longing fancy. It was perhaps the most 
beautiful, though not the grandest of the mission churches ; 
and its ruins have to-da} r a charm far exceeding all the 
others. The fine yellow tint of the stone, the grand and 
unique contour of the arches, the beautiful star-shaped 
window in the front, the simple j T et effective lines of carv- 
ing on pilaster and pillar and doorway-, the S3'mmetrical 
Moorish tower and dome, the worn steps leading up to the 
belfiy, — all make a picture whose beauty, apart from hal- 
lowing associations, is enough to hold one spell-bound. 
Reverent Nature has rebuilt with grass and blossoms even 
the crumbling window-sills, across which the wind blows 
free from the blue ocean just beyond ; and on the day we 
saw the place, golden wheat, fresh reaped, was piled in 
loose mounds on the south slope below the church's south- 
ern wall. It reminded me of the tales I had heard from 
man}' aged men and women of a beautiful custom the In- 
dians had of scattering their choicest grains on the ground 
at the friars' feet, as a token of homage. 

The roof of the church long ago fell in ; its doors have 
stood open for } r ears ; and the fierce sea-gales have been 
sweeping in, piling sands until a great part of the floor is 
covered with solid earth on which every summer grasses 
and weeds grow high enough to be cut by sickles. Of the 
thousands of acres which the Mission Indians once culti- 
vated in the San Carlos valle}*, only nine were finally de- 
creed b}* the United States Government to belong to the 
church. These were so carelessly sunned that no avenue 
of approach was left open to the mission buildings, and a 
part of the land had to be sold to buy a right of way to the 
church. The remnant left makes a little farm, b}^ the rental 
of which a man can be hired to take charge of the whole 
place, and keep it, if possible, from further desecration 
and ruin. The present keeper is a devout Portuguese, 
whose broken English becomes eloquent as he speaks of 
the old friars whose graves he guards. 

" Dem work for civilize," he said, " not work for money. 
Dey work to religion." 

In clearing away the earth at the altar end of the church, 
in the winter of 1882, this man came upon stone slabs evi- 
dently covering graves. On opening one of these graves, 
it was found to hold three coffins. From the minute de- 



FATHER JUNIPERO AND HIS WORK. 51 

scription, in the old records, of Father Junipero's place of 
burial, Father Carenova, the priest now in charge of the 
Monterey parish, became convinced that one of these coffins 
must be his. On the opposite side of the church is another * 
grave, where are buried two of the earliest governors of 
California. 

It is a disgrace to both the Catholic Church and the 
State of California that this grand old ruin, with its sacred ] 
sepulchres, should be left to crumble awa}\ If nothing is / 
done to protect and save it, one short hundred years more / 
will see it a shapeless, wind-swept mound of sand. It is 
not in our power to confer honor or bring dishonor on the 
illustrious dead. We ourselves, alone, are dishonored 
when we fail in reverence to them. The grave of Juni- 
pero Serra may be buried centuries deep, and its veiy place 
forgotten ; 3'et his name will not perish, nor his fame suffer. 
But for the men of the countiy whose civilization he 
founded, and of the Church whose faith he so glorified, to 
permit his burial-place to sink into oblivion, is a shame 
indeed ! 



II. 

If the little grief- stricken band of monks who stood 
weeping around Junipero Serra's grave in 1784 could 
have foreseen the events of the next thirty years, their 
weeping would have been turned into exultant joy ; but 
not the most daring enthusiast among them could have 
dreamed of the harvest of power destined to be raised 
from the seed thus sown in weakness. 

Almost with his dying breath Father Junipero had 
promised to use " all his influence with God " in behalf of 
the missions. In the course of the next four months 
after his death more converts were baptized than in the 
whole three } T ears previous ; and it became at once the 
common belief that his soul had passed directly into 
heaven, and that this great wave of conversions was the 



52 CALIFORNIA AND OREGON 

result of his prayers. Prosperity continued steadily to 
increase. Mission after mission was successfully founded, 
until, in 1804, the occupation of the sea-coast line from 
San Francisco to San Diego was complete, there be- 
ing nineteen mission establishments only an eas}- day's 
journey apart from each other. 

The ten new missions were founded in the following 
order: Santa Barbara, Dec. 4, 1786 ; La Purissima, Dec. 
8, 1787; Santa Cruz, Sept. 25, 1791; Soledad, Oct. 9, 
1791; San Jose, June 11, 1797; San Juan Bautista, 
June 24, 1797 ; San Miguel, July 25, 1797 ; San Fernando 
Rey, Sept. 8, 1797 ; San Luis Key de Francia, June 18, 
1798 ; Santa Inez, Sept. 7, 1804. 

Beginnings had also been made on a projected second 
line, to be from thirty to fifty miles back from the sea ; 
and this inland chain of settlements and development 
promised to be in no way inferior to the first. The 
wealth of the mission establishments had grown to an al- 
most incredible degree. In several of them massive stone 
churches had been built, of an architecture at once so 
simple and harmonious that, even in ruins, it is to-day 
the grandest in America; and it will remain, so long as 
arch, pillar, or dome of it shall stand, a noble and touch- 
ing monument of the patient Indian workers who built, 
and of the devoted friars who designed, its majestic and 
graceful proportions. 

In all of the missions were buildings on a large scale, 
providing for hundreds of occupants, for all the necessary 
trades and manufactures, and man}' of the ornamental 
arts of civilized life. Enormous tracts of land were un- 
der high cultivation ; the grains and cool fruits of the 
temperate zone flourishing, in the marvellous California 
air, side by side with the palm, olive, grape, fig, orange, 
and pomegranate. From the two hundred head of cattle 
sent by the wise Galvez, had grown herds past number- 
ing ; and to these had been added vast flocks of sheep 
and herds of horses. In these nineteen missions were 
gathered over twent}~ thousand Indians, leading regular 
and industrious lives, and conforming to the usages of the 
Catholic religion. 

A description of the San Luis Re} T Mission, written by 
De Mofras, an attache of the French Legation in Mexico 



FATHER JUNIPERO AND HIS WORK. 53 

in 1842, gives a clear idea of the form, and some of the 
methods, of the mission establishments : — 

" The building is a quadrilateral, four hundred and fifty feet 
square; the church occupies one of its wings; the facade is or- 
namented with a gallery. The building is two stories in height. 
The interior is formed by a court ornamented with fountains, 
and decorated with trees. Upon the gallery which runs around 
it open the dormitories of the monks, of the majors-domo, and 
of travellers, small workshops, schoolrooms, and storerooms. 
The hospitals are situated in the most quiet parts of the mis- 
sion, where also the schools are kept. The young Indian girls 
dwell in halls called monasteries, and are called nuns. Placed 
under the care of Indian matrons, who are worthy of confidence, 
they learn to make cloth of wool, cotton, and flax, and do not 
leave the monastery until they are old enough to be married. 
The Indian children mingle in schools with those of the white 
colonists. A certain number chosen among the pupils who dis- 
play the most intelligence learn music, chanting, the violin, 
flute, horn, violoncello, or other instruments. Those who dis- 
tinguish themselves in the carpenters' shops, at the forge, or in 
agricultural labors are appointed alcaldes, or overseers, and 
charged with the directions of the laborers." 



Surrounding these buildings, or arranged in regular 
streets upon one side of them, were the homes of the In- 
dian families. These were built of adobe, or of reeds, 
after the native fashion. The daily routine of the In- 
dians' life was simple and uniform. The}' were divided 
into squads of laborers. At sunrise the Angelus bell 
called them to mass. After the mass the}' breakfasted, 
and then dispersed to their various labors. At eleven 
they were again summoned together for dinner, after 
which they rested until two, when they went again to 
work, and worked until the evening Angelus, just before 
sunset. After prayers and supper they were in the habit 
of dancing and playing games until bedtime. Their food 
was good. They had meat at noon, accompanied by 
posale, a sort of succotash made of corn, beans, and 
wheat, boiled together. Their breakfast and supper were 
usually of porridge made from different grains, called atole 
and pinole. 

The men wore linen shirts, pantaloons, and blankets. 
The overseers and best workmen had suits of cloth like 



54 CALIFORNIA AND OREGON. 

the Spaniards. The women received every j'ear two che- 
mises, one gown, and a blanket. De Mofras says : — 

"When the hides, tallow, grain, wine, and oil were sold at 
good prices to ships from abroad, the monks distributed hand- 
kerchiefs, wearing apparel, tobacco, and trinkets among the 
Indians, and devoted the surplus to the embellishment of the 
churches, the purchase of musical instruments, pictures, church 
ornaments, etc. ; still they were careful to keep a part of the 
harvest in the granaries to provide for years of scarcity." 

The rule of the friars was in the main a kindly one. 
The vice of drunkenness was severely punished by flog- 
ging. Quarrelling between husbands and wives was also 
dealt with summarily, the offending parties being chained 
together by the leg till they were glad to promise to keep 
peace. New converts and recruits were secured in many 
ways : sometimes by sending out parties of those already 
attached to the new mode of life, and letting them set 
forth to the savages the advantages and comforts of the 
Christian way ; sometimes by luring strangers in with 
gifts ; sometimes, it is said, b} T capturing them by main 
force ; but of this there is only scant}' evidence, and it is 
not probable that it was often practised. It has also been 
said that cruel and severe methods were used to compel 
the Indians to work ; that the} r were driven under the 
lash Iry their overseers, and goaded with lances by the 
soldiers. No doubt there were individual instances oi 
cruehyv ; seeds of it being indigenous in human nature, 
such absolute control of hundreds of human beings could 
not exist without some abuses of the power. But that 
the Indians were, on the whole, well treated and cared 
for, the fact that so many thousands of them chose to 
remain in the missions is proof. With open wilderness 
on all sides, and with thousands of savage friends and 
relatives close at hand, nothing but their own free will 
could have kept such numbers of them loyal and con- 
tented. Forbes, in his histoiy of California, written in 
1832, says : — 

" The best and most unequivocal proof of the good conduct 
of the fathers is to be found in the unbounded affection- and 
devotion invariably shown toward them by their Indian sub- 



FATHER JUNIPERO AND HIS WORK. 55 

jects. They venerate them not merely as friends and fathers, 
but with a degree of devotion approaching to adoration." 

The picture of life in one of these missions during their 
period of prosperit}' is unique and attractive. The whole 
place was a hive of industry : trades plying indoors and 
outdoors ; tillers, herders, vintagers b}* hundreds, going 
to and fro ; children in schools ; women spinning ; bands 
of j'oung men practising on musical instruments ; music, 
the scores of which, in many instances, the}' had them- 
selves written out ; at evening, all sorts of games of 
running, leaping, dancing, and ball-throwing, and the 
picturesque ceremonies of a religion which has alwa}^ been 
wise in availing itself of beautiful agencies in color, form, 
and harmony. 

At every mission were walled gardens with w r aving 
palms, sparkling fountains, groves of olive trees, broad 
vineyards, and orchards of all manner of fruits ; over all, 
the sunn}*, delicious, winterless California sky. 

More than mortal, indeed, must the Franciscans have 
been, to have been able, under these conditions, to pre- 
serve intact the fervor and spirit of self-abnegation and 
deprivation inculcated by the rules of their order. There 
is a half-comic pathos in the records of occasional efforts 
made b}~ one and another of the presidents to check the 
growing disposition toward ease on the part of the friars. 
At one time several of them were found to be carrying- 
silver watches. The watches were taken away, and sent 
to Guadalajara to be sold, the money to be paid into 
the Church treasurj'. At another time an order was is- 
sued, forbidding the wearing of shoes and stockings in 
place of sandals, and the occupying of too large and com- 
fortable rooms. And one zealous president, finding that 
the friars occasionally rode in the carts belonging to their 
missions, had all the carts burned, to compel the fathers 
to go about on foot. 

The friars were forced, by the very facts of their situa- 
tion, into the exercise of a constant and abounding hospi- 
tality ; and this of itself inevitably brought about large 
departures from the ascetic regime of living originally 
preached and practised. Most royally did they discharge 
the obligations of this hospitality. Travellers' rooms were 



56 CALIFORNIA AND OREGON. 

kept always ready in eveiy mission ; and there were even 
set apart fruit orchards called "travellers' orchards." A 
man might ride from San Diego to Monterey by easy day's 
journeys, spending each night as guest in a mission estab- 
lishment. As soon as he rode up, an Indian page would 
appear to take his horse ; another to show him to one of 
the travellers' rooms. He was served with the best of food 
and wine as long as he liked to sta}*, and when he left he 
might, if he wished, take from the mission herd a fresh 
horse to 'cany him on his journey. All the California 
voyagers and travellers of the time speak in glowing terms 
of this generous and cordial entertaining by the friars. 
It was, undoubtedly, part of their polic}' as representatives 
of the State, but it was no less a part of their duty as 
Franciscans. 

Some of the highest tributes which have been paid to 
them, both as men and as administrators of affairs, have 
come from strangers who, thus sojourning under their 
roofs, had the best opportunity of knowing their lives. 
Says Forbes : — 

" Their conduct has been marked by a degree of benevolence, 
humanity, and moderation probably unexampled in any other 
situation. ... I have never heard that they have not acted with 
the most perfect fidelity, or that they ever betrayed a trust, or 
acted with inhumanity." 

This testimony is of the more weight that it comes from 
a man not in sympathy with either the religious or the 
secular system on which the friars' labors were based. 

The tales still told by old people of festal occasions at 
the missions sound like tales of the Old World rather than 
of the New. There was a strange difference, fifty years 
ago, between the atmosphere of life on the east and 
Avest sides of the American continent : on the Atlantic 
shore, the descendants of the Puritans, weighed down 
by serious purpose, half grudging the time for their one 
staid yearly Thanksgiving, and driving the Indians farther 
and farther into the wilderness every year, fighting and 
killing them ; on the sunny Pacific shore, the merry peo- 
ple of Mexican and Spanish blood, troubling themselves 
about nothing, dancing awa}' whole days and nights like 
children, while their priests were gathering the Indians 






FATHER JUNIPERO AND EIS WORK. 57 

by thousands into communities, and feeding and teaching 
them. 

The most beautiful woman known in California a half- 
century ago 1 still lives in Santa Barbara, white-haired, 
bright-eyed, eloquent-tongued to-day. At the time of her 
marriage, her husband being a brother of the Superior of 
the Santa Barbara mission, her wedding banquet was 
spread on tables running the whole length of the outer 
corridor of the mission. For three days and three nights 
the feasting and dancing were kept up, and the whole 
town was bid. On the day after her wedding came the 
christening or blessing of the right tower of the church. 
She and her husband, having been chosen godfather and 
godmother to the tower, walked in solemn procession 
around it, carrying lighted candles in their hands, pre- 
ceded by the friar, who sprinkled it with holy water and 
burned incense. In the four long streets of Indians' 
houses, then running eastward from the mission, booths 
of green boughs, decorated with flowers, were set up in 
front of all the doors. Companies of Indians from other 
missions came as guests, dancing and singing as they ap- 
proached. Their Indian hosts went out to meet them, 
also singing, and pouring out seeds on the ground for 
them to walk on. These were descendants of the Indians 
who, when Viscayno anchored off Santa Barbara in 1602, 
came out in canoes, bringing their king, and rowed three 
times around Viscayno's ship, chanting a chorus of wel- 
come. Then the king, going on board the ship, walked 
three times around the deck, chanting the same song. 
He then gave to the Spaniards gifts of all the simple foods 
he had, and implored them to land, promising that if they 
would come and be their brothers, he would give to each 
man ten wives. 

With the increase of success, wealth, and power on the 
part of the missions came increasing complexities in their 
relation to the military settlements in the country. The 
original Spanish plan of colonization was threefold, — 
religious, military, and civil. Its first two steps were a 
mission and a presidio, or garrison, — the presidio to be the 
guard of the mission ; later was to come the pueblo, 1 or 

1 "The term 'pueblo' answers to that of the English word 'town,' 
in all its vagueness and all its precision. As the word ' town ' in 



58 CALIFORNIA AND OREGON. 

town. From indefiniteness in the understanding of prop- 
erty rights, and rights of authority, as vested under these 
three heads, there very soon arose confusion, which led to 
collisions, — collisions which have not yet ceased, and 
never will, so long as there remains a land-title in Cali- 
fornia to be quarrelled over. The law records of the State 
are brimful of briefs, counter-briefs, opinions, and counter- 
opinions regarding property issues, all turning on defini- 
tions which nobody has now clear right to make, of old 
pueblo and presidio titles and bounds. 

In the beginning there were no grants of land ; every- 
thing was clone by royal decree. In the form of taking 
possession of the new lands, the Church, b}. right of sacred 
honor, came first, the religious ceremon}' always preceding 
the militaiy. Not till the cross was set up, and the 
ground consecrated and taken possession of, in the name 
of God, for the Church's purposes, did any militaiy com- 
mander ever think of planting the ro\*al standard, symbol- 
izing the king's possession. In the early days the relations 
between the military and the ecclesiastical representatives 
of the king were comparatively simple : the soldiers were 
sent avowedly and specifically to protect the friars ; more- 
over, in those earlier days, soldiers and friars were alike 
devout, and, no doubt, had the mission interests more 
equally at heart than they did later. But each year's in- 
crease of numbers in the garrisons, and of numbers and 
power in the missions, increased the possibilities of clash- 
ing, until finally the relations between the two underwent a 
singular reversal ; and the friars, if disposed to be satirical, 
might well have said that, however bad a rule might be 
which would not work both ways, a rule which did was not of 
necessity a good one, it being now the duty of the missions 
to support the presidios ; the militaiy governors being au- 
thorized to draw upon the friars not only for supplies, but 
for contributions of money and for levies of laborers. 1 

English generally embraces every kind of population from the village 
to the city, and also, used specifically, signifies a town corporate 
and politic, so the word ' pueblo ' in Spanish ranges from the hamlet 
to the city, but, used emphatically, signifies a town corporate and 
politic." — Dwinelle's Colonial History of San Francisco. 

1 In the decade between 1801 and 1810 the missions furnished to 
the presidios about eighteen thousand dollars' worth of supplies each 
year. 



FATHER JUNIPERO AND HIS WORK. 59 

On the other hand, no lands could be set off or assigned 
for colonists without consent of the friars, and there were 
many other curious and entangling cross-purpose powers 
distributed between friars and military governors quite 
sufficient to make it next to impossible for things to go 
smoothly. 

The mission affairs, so far as their own internal interests 
were concerned, were administered with admirable sim- 
plicity and system. The friars in charge of the missions 
were responsible directly to the president, or prefect, of the 
missions. He, in turn, was responsible to the president, 
or guardian, of the Franciscan College in San Fernando, 
in Mexico. One responsible officer, called procurador, 
was kept in the city of Mexico to buy supplies for the 
missions from stipends due, and from the drafts given 
to the friars b}^ the presidio commanders for goods fur- 
nished to the presidios. There was also a syndic, or 
general agent, at San Bias, who attended to the shipping 
and forwarding of supplies. It was a happy combination 
of the minimum of functionaries with the maximum of 
responsibility. 

The income supporting the missions was derived from 
two sources, the first of which was a fund, called the 
"Pious Fund," originally belonging to the Jesuit order, 
but on the suppression of that order, in 1868, taken pos- 
session of by the Spanish Government in trust for the 
Church. This fund, begun early in the eighteenth cen- 
tury, was made up of estates, mines, manufactories, and 
flocks, — all gifts of rich Catholics to the Societ}^ of Jesus. 
It yielded an income of fifty thousand dollars a 3'ear, the 
whole of which belonged to the Church, and was to be 
used in paying stipends to the friars (to the Dominicans 
in Lower as well as to the Franciscans in Upper California), 
and in the purchasing of articles needed in the missions. 
The missions' second source of income was from the sales 
of their own products : first to the presidios, — these sales 
paid for 03- drafts on the Spanish or Mexican Government ; 
second, to trading ships, coming more and more each year 
to the California coast. 

As soon as revolutionary troubles began to agitate 
Spain and Mexico, the income of the missions from 
abroad began to fall off. The Pious Fund was too big 



60 CALIFORNIA AND OREGON. 

a sum to be honestly administered by any government 
hard pressed for money. Spain began to filch from it 
early, to pay the bills of her wars with Portugal and Eng- 
land ; and Mexico, as soon as she had the chance, fol- 
lowed Spain's example vigorously, selling whole estates 
and pocketing their price, farming the fund out for the 
benefit of the State treasury, and, finally, in Santa Anna's, 
time, selling the whole outright to two banking-houses. 
During these troublous times the friars not only failed 
frequently to receive their regular stipends allotted from 
the interest of this Pious Fund, but their agent was unable 
to collect the mone}' due them for the supplies furnished 
to the presidios. The sums of which they were thus 
robbed by two governments — that, being ostensibly of the 
Catholic faith, should surely have held the Church's prop- 
erty sacred — mounted up in a few years to such enor- 
mous figures that restitution would have been practically 
impossible, and, except for their own internal sources of 
revenue, the missions must have come to bankruptcy and 
ruin. 

However, the elements which were to bring about this 
ruin were already at work, — were, indeed, inherent in the 
very system on which the}' had been founded. The Span- 
ish Government was impatient to see carried out, and to 
reap the benefit of, the pueblo feature of its colonization 
plan. With a singular lack of realization of- the time 
needed to make citizens out of savages, it had set ten 
3'ears as the period at the expiration of which the Indian 
communities attached to the missions were to be formed 
into pueblos, — the missions to be secularized, that is, 
turned into curacies, the pueblo being the parish. This 
was, no doubt, the wise and proper ultimate scheme, — the 
only one, in fact, which provided either for the entire civ- 
ilization of the Indian or the successful colonization of 
the country. But five times ten 3~ears would have been 
little enough to allow for getting such a scheme fairly un- 
der way, and another five times ten years for the finishing 
and rounding of the work. It is strange how sure civil- 
ized peoples are, when planning and legislating for sav- 
ages, to forget that it has always taken centuries to graft 
on or evolve out of savageiy anything like civilization. 

Aiming towards this completing of their colonization 



FATHER JUNIPERO AND HIS WORK. 61 

plan, the Spanish Government had very early founded the 
pueblos of Los Angeles and San Jose. A second class of 
pueblos, called, in the legal phrase of California's later 
days, " Presidial Pueblos," had originated in the settle- 
ment of the presidios, and gradually grown up around 
them. There were four of these, — San Diego, Monterey, 
Santa Barbara, and San Francisco. 

It is easy to see how, as these settlements increased, of 
persons more or less unconnected with the missions, there 
must have grown up discontent at the Church's occupa- 
tion and control of so large a proportion of the country. 
Ready for alliance with this discontent was the constant 
jealously on the part of the military authorities, whose meas- 
ures were often — and, no doubt, often rightry — opposed 
by the friars. These fomenting causes of disquiet reacted 
on the impatience and greed in Spain ; all together slowly, 
steadily working against the missions, until, in 1813, the 
Spanish Cortes passed an act decreeing their seculariza- 
tion. This was set forth in sounding phrase as an act 
purely for the benefit of the Indians, that they might be- 
come citizens of towns. But it was, to say the least of it, 
as much for Spain as for the Indians, since, by its provi- 
sions, one half of the mission lands were to be sold for the 
payment of Spain's national debt. This act, so manifestly 
premature, remained a dead letter ; but it alarmed the 
friars, and with reason. It was the tocsin of their doom, 
of the downfall of their establishments, and the ruin of 
their work. 

Affairs grew more and more unsettled. Spanish vice- 
roy's and Mexican insurgents took turns at ruling in Mex- 
ico, and the representatives of each took turns at ruling in 
California. The waves of every Mexican revolution broke 
on the California shore. The College of San Fernando, 
in Mexico, also shared in the general confusion, and man}- 
of its members returned to Spain. 

From 1817 to 1820 great requisitions were made by the 
Government upon the missions. They responded gener- 
ously. They gave not only food, but money. They sub- 
mitted to a tax, per capita, on all their thousands of 
Indians, to pay the expenses of a deputy to sit in the 
Mexican Congress. They allowed troops to be quartered 
in the mission buildings. At the end of the year 1820 



62 CALIFORNIA AND OREGON. 

the outstanding drafts on the Government, in favor of the 
missions, amounted to four hundred thousand dollars. 

It is impossible, in studying the records of this time, 
not to feel that the friars were, in the main, disposed to 
work in good faith for the best interests of the State. 
That they opposed the secularization project is true ; but 
it is unjust to assume that their motives in so doing were 
purely selfish. Most certainly, the results of the carrying 
out of that project were such as to prove all that they 
claimed of its untimeliness. It is easy saying, as their 
enemies do, that they would never have advocated it, and 
were not training the Indians with a view to it : but the 
first assertion is an assumption, and nothing more ; and 
the refutation of the second lies in the fact that even in 
that short time the}' had made the savages into " masons, 
carpenters, plasterers, soap-makers, tanners, shoe-makers, 
blacksmiths, millers, bakers, cooks, brick-makers, carters 
and cart-makers, weavers and spinners, saddlers, ship 
hands, agriculturists, herdsmen, vintagers; — in a word, 
the}' filled all the laborious occupations known to civilized 
society." * Moreover, in many of the missions, plots of 
land had already been given to individual neophytes who 
seemed to have intelligence and energy enough to begin an 
independent life for themselves. But it is idle speculating 
now as to what would or would not have been done under 
conditions which never existed. 

So long as Spain refused to recognize Mexico's inde- 
pendence, the majority of the friars, as was natural, re- 
mained loyal to the Spanish Government, and 3'ielded with 
reluctance and under protest, in every instance, to Mex- 
ico's control. For some years President Sarria was under 
arrest for refusing to take the oath of allegiance to the 
Mexican republic. Nevertheless, it not being convenient 
to remove him and fill his place, he performed all his func- 
tions as president of the missions through that time. Many 
other friars refused to take the oath, and left the country 
in consequence. During three 3-ears the secularization pro- 
ject was continually agitated, and at intervals measures 
initiatory to it were decreed and sometimes acted upon. 

1 Special Report of the Hon. B. D. Wilson, of Los Angeles, Cal., 
to the Interior Department in 1852. 



FATHER JUNIPERO AND HIS WORK. 63 

The shifting governors of unfortunate California legis- 
lated for or against the mission interests according to the 
exigencies of their needs or the warnmess or lukewarmness 
of their religious faith. 

An act of one year, declaring the Indians liberated, and 
ordering the friars to turn over the mission properties to 
administrators, would be followed a few years later by an 
act restoring the power of the friars, and giving back to 
them all that remained to be rescued of the mission proper- 
ties and converts. All was anarch} 7 and confusion. During 
the fifty-five years that California was under Spanish rule 
she had but nine governors. During the twenty-four that 
she was under Mexican misrule she had thirteen. It 
would be interesting to know what the Indian populations 
thought, as they watched these quarrellings and intrigues 
among the Christians who were held up to them as patterns 
for imitation. 

In a curious pamphlet left by one of the old friars, Father 
Boscana, is told a droll stoiy of the logical inferences some 
of them drew from the political situations among their sup- 
posed betters. It was a band of San Diego Indians. When 
they heard that the Spanish viceroy in the city of Mexico 
had been killed, and a Mexican made emperor in his place, 
they forthwith made a great feast, burned up their chief, 
and elected a new one in his stead. To the stringent re- 
proofs of the horrified friars they made answer : ' ' Have 
you not done the same in Mexico ? You sajr your king 
was not good, and } t ou killed him. Well, our captain was 
not good, and we burned him. If the new one turns out 
bad, we will burn him too," — a memorable instance of 
the superiority of example to precept. 

At last, in 1834, the final blow fell on the missions. 
The Governor of California, in compliance with instruc- 
tions received from Mexico, issued an authoritative edict 
for their secularization. It was a long document, and had 
many significant provisions in it. It said that the Indians 
were now to be " emancipated." But the 16th article said 
that the} 7 " should be obliged to join in such labors of com- 
munity as are indispensable, in the opinion of the political 
chief, in the cultivation of the vineyards, gardens, and 
fields, which for the present remain unapportioned." This 
was a curious sort of emancipation ; and it is not surprising 



64 CALIFORNIA AND OREGON. 

to read, in the political records of the time, such para- 
graphs as this : ' ' Out of one hundred and sixty Indian 
families at San Diego, to whom emancipation was offered 
by Governor Figueroa, only ten could be induced to accept 
it." The friars were to hand over all records and invento- 
ries to stewards or administrators appointed. Boards of 
magistrates were also appointed for each village. One 
half of the movable propert}* was to be divided among the 
" emancipated persons," and to each head of a family was 
to be given four hundred square yards of land. Every- 
thing else — lands, movable properties, propert} 7- of all 
classes — was to be put into the hands of the administra- 
tor, to be held subject to the Federal Government. Out 
of these properties the administrators were to provide 
properly for the support of the father or fathers left in 
charge of the church, the church properties, and the souls 
of the " emancipated persons." A more complete and in- 
genious subversion of the previously existing state of things 
could not have been devised ; and it is hard to conceive how 
an}- student of the history of the period can see, in its 
shaping and sudden enforcing, anything except bold and 
unprincipled greed hiding itself under specious cloaks of 
right. Says Dwindle, in his " Colonial Histor\- : " — 

" Beneath these specious pretexts was undoubtedly a perfect 
understanding between the Government of Mexico and the lead- 
ing men in California, that in such a condition of things the 
Supreme Government might absorb the Pious Fund, under the 
pretence that it was no longer necessary for missionary pur- 
poses, and thus had reverted to the State as a quasi escheat, 
while the co-actors in California should appropriate the local 
wealth of the missions by the rapid and sure process of admin- 
istering their temporalities." 

Of the manner in which the project was executed, Dwi- 
nelle goes on to say : — 

" These laws, whose ostensible purpose was to convert the 
missionary establishments into Indian pueblos, their churches 
into parish churches, and to elevate the Christianized Indians to 
the rank of citizens, were after all executed in such a manner 
that the so-called secularization of the missions resulted in their 
plunder and complete ruin, and in the demoralization and dis- 
persion of the Christianized Indians." 



FATHER JUNIPERO AND HIS WORK. 65 

It is only just to remember, however, that these laws 
and measures were set in force in a time of revolution, 
when even the best measures and laws could have small 
chance of being fairly executed, and that a government 
which is driven, as Mexico was, to recruiting its colonial 
forces b} 7 batches of selected prison convicts, is entitled to 
pity, if not charity, in our estimates of its conduct. Of 
course, the position of administrator of a mission became 
at once a political reward and a chance for big gains, 
and simply, therefore, a source and centre of bribery and 
corruption. 

Between the governors — who now regarded the mission 
establishments as State propert} 7 , taking their cattle or 
grain as freely as they would any other revenue, and send- 
ing orders to a mission for tallow as they would draw 
checks on the treasury — and the administrators, who 
equally regarded them as easy places for the filling of 
pockets, the wealth of the missions disappeared as dew 
melts in the sun. Through all this the Indians were the 
victims. They were, under the administrators, compelled 
to work far harder than before ; the} 7 were ill-fed and ill- 
treated ; they were hired out in gangs to work in towns 
or on farms, under masters who regarded them simply as 
beasts of burden ; their rights to the plots of land which 
had been set off for them were, almost without exception, 
ignored. A more pitiable sight has not often been seen 
on earth than the spectacle of this great bod} 7 of helpless, 
dependent creatures, suddenly deprived of their teachers 
and protectors, thrown on their own resources, and at the 
mercy of rapacious and unscrupulous communities, in time 
of revolution. The best comment on their sufferings is to 
be found in the statistics of the mission establishments 
after a few } T ears of the administrators' reign. 

In 1834 there were, according to the lowest estimates, 
from fifteen to twenty thousand Indians in the missions. 
De Mofras's statistics give the number as 30,620. In 1840 
there were left, all told, but six thousand. In many of 
the missions there were less than one hundred. According 
to De Mofras, the cattle, sheep, horses, and mules, in 
1834, numbered 808,000 ; in 1842, but 6,320. Other esti- 
mates put the figures for 1834 considerably lower. It 
is not easy to determine which are true ; but the most 

6 



66 CALIFORNIA AND OREGON. 

moderate estimates of all tell the story with sufficient 
emphasis. There is also verbal testimony on these points 
still to be heard in California, if one has patience and 
interest enough in the subject to listen to it. There are 
still living, wandering about, half blind, half starved, in 
the neighborhood of the mission sites, old Indians who 
recollect the mission times in the height of their glory. 
Their faces kindle with a sad flicker of recollected happi- 
ness, as they tell of the days when they had all they 
wanted to eat, and the padres were so good and kind : 
" Bueno tiempo ! Bueno tiempo," they say, with a hope- 
less sigh and shake of the head. 

Under the new regime the friars suffered hardly less 
than the Indians. Some fled the country, unable to bear 
the humiliations and hardships of their positions under 
the control of the administrators or majors-domo, and 
dependent on their caprice for shelter and even for food. 
Among this number was Father Antonio Peyri, who had 
been for over thirty years in charge of the splendid mission 
of San Luis Re}^. In 1800, two years after its founding, 
this mission had 369 Indians. In 1827 it had 2,686 ; it 
owned over twenty thousand head of cattle, and nearly 
twenty thousand sheep. It controlled over two hundred 
thousand acres of land, and there were raised in its fields 
in one 3'ear three thousand bushels of wheat, six thousand 
of barley, and ten thousand of corn. No other mission 
had so fine a church. It was one hundred and sixty feet 
long, fifty wide, and sixty high, with walls four feet 
thick. A tower at one side held a belfry for eight bells. 
The corridor on the opposite side had two hundred and 
fifty-six arches. Its gold and silver ornaments are said 
to have been superb. 

When Father Peyri made up his mind to leave the 
country, he slipped off by night to San Diego, hoping to 
escape without the Indians' knowledge. But, missing him 
in the morning, and knowing only too well what it meant, 
five hundred of them mounted their ponies in hot haste, 
and galloped all the way to San Diego, forty-five miles, to 
bring him back b} T force. They arrived just as the ship, 
with Father Peyri on board, was weighing anchor. Stand- 
ing on the deck, with outstretched arms he blessed them, 
amid their tears and loud cries. Some flung themselves 



FATHER JUNIPERO AND HIS WORK. 67 

into the water and swam after the ship. Four reached it, 
and clinging to its sides, so implored to be taken that 
the father consented, and carried them with him to Rome, 
where one of them became a priest. 

There were other touching instances in which the fathers 
refused to be separated from their Indian converts, and 
remained till the last b}' their side, sharing all their miseries 
and deprivations. De Mofras, in his visit to the country 
in 1842, found, at the mission of San Luis Obispo, Father 
Azagonais, a very old man, living in a hut, like the In- 
dians, sleeping on a rawhide on the bare ground, with no 
drinking-vessel but an ox-horn, and no food but some dried 
meat hanging in the sun. The little he had he shared 
with the few Indians who still lingered there. Benevolent 
persons had offered him asylum ; but he refused, saying 
that he would die at his post. At the San Antonio mission 
De Mofras found another aged friar, Father Gutierrez, 
living in great misery. The administrator of this mission 
was a man who had been formerl}' a menial servant in the 
establishment ; he had refused to provide Father Gutierrez 
with the commonest necessaries, and had put him on an 
allowance of food barely sufficient to keep him alive. 

At Soledad was a still more pitiful case. Father Sarria, 
who had labored there for thirt}^ years, refused to leave the 
spot, even after the mission was so ruined that it was not 
worth any administrator's while to keep it. He and the 
handful of Indians who remained loyal to their faith and 
to him lived on there, growing poorer and poorer each 
day ; he sharing his every morsel of food with them, and 
starving himself, till, one Sunday morning, saying mass at 
the crumbling altar, he fainted, fell forward, and died in 
their arms, of starvation. This was in 1838. Only eight 
years before, this Soledad mission had owned thirty-six 
thousand cattle, seventy thousand sheep, three hundred 
yoke of working oxen, more horses than any other mission, 
and had an aqueduct, fifteen miles long, supplying water 
enough to irrigate twenty thousand acres of land. 

For ten years after the passage of the Secularization Act, 
affairs went steadil}' on from bad to worse with the mis- 
sions. Each governor had his own plans and devices for 
making the most out of them, renting them, dividing them 
into parcels for the use of colonists, establishing pueblos 



68 CALIFORNIA AND OREGON. 

on them, making them subject to laws of bankruptcy, and 
finally selling them. The departmental assemblies some- 
times indorsed and sometimes annulled the acts of the 
governors. In 1842 Governor Micheltorena proclaimed 
that the twelve southern missions should be restored to 
the Church, and that the Government would not make 
another grant of land without the consent of the friars. 
This led to a revolution, or rather an ebullition, and 
Micheltorena was sent out of the countiy. To him suc- 
ceeded Pio Pico, who remained in power till the occu- 
pation of California \>y the United States forces in 1846. 
During the reign of Pio Pico, the ruin of the mission 
establishments was completed. They were at first sold or 
rented in batches to the highest bidders. There was first 
a preliminary farce of proclamation to the Indians to return 
and take possession of the missions if they did not want 
them sold. These proclamations were posted up in the 
pueblos for months before the sales. In 1844 the Indians 
of Dolores, Soledad, San Miguel, La Purissima, and San 
Rafael 1 were thus summoned to come back to their mis- 
sions, — a curious bit of half conscience - stricken, half 
politic recognition of the Indians' ownership of the lands, 
the act of the Departmental Assembly saying that if the}' 
(the Indians) did not return before such a date, the Gov- 
ernment would declare said missions to be "without own- 
ers," and dispose of them accordingly. There must have 
been much bitter speech in those da}'s when news of these 
proclamations reached the wilds where the mission Indians 
had taken refuge. 

At last, in March, 1846, an act of the Departmental 
Assembly made the missions liable to the laws of bank- 
ruptcy, and authorized the governor to sell them to private 
persons. As by this time all the missions that had any 
pretence of existence left had been run hopelessly into 
debt, proceedings in regard to them were much simplified 
hy this act. In the same } T ear the President of Mexico 
issued an order to Governor Pico to use all means within 
his power to raise mone} r to defend the country against 
the United States ; and under color of this double author- 

1 The missions of San Rafael and San Francisco de Solano were 
the last founded ; the first in 1819, and the latter in 1823, — too late to 
attain any great success or importance. 



FATHER JUNIPERO AND HIS WORK. 69 

ization the governor forthwith proceeded to sell missions 
right and left. He sold them at illegal private sales ; he 
sold them for insignificant sums, and for sums not paid at 
all ; whether he was, to use the words of a well-known 
legal brief in one of the celebrated California land cases, 
" wilfully ignorant or grossly corrupt," there is no knowing, 
and it made no difference in the result. 

One of the last acts of the Departmental Assembly, before 
the surrender of the country, was to declare all Governor 
Pico's sales of mission property null and void. And one 
of Governor Pico's last acts was, as soon as he had made 
np his mind to run away out of the country, to write to 
some of his special friends and ask them if there were any- 
thing else they would like to have him give them before 
his departure. 

On the 7th of July, 1846, the American flag was raised 
in Monterey, and formal possession of California was taken 
by the United States. The proclamation of Admiral Sloat 
on this memorable occasion included these words : "All 
persons holding title to real estate, or in quiet possession 
of lands under color of right, shall have those titles and 
rights guaranteed to them." "Color of right" is a legal 
phrase, embodying a moral idea, an obligation of equity. 
If the United States Government had kept this guarantee, 
there would be living in comfortable homesteads in Cali- 
fornia to-day many hundreds of people that are now 
homeless and beggared, — Mexicans as well as Indians. 

The army officers in charge of different posts in Califor- 
nia, in these first days of the United States' occupation of. 
the country, were perplexed and embarrassed b}' nothing 
so much as by the coufusion existing in regard to the 
mission properties and lands. Everywhere men turned up 
with bills of sale from Governor Pico. At the San Diego 
mission the ostensible owner, one Estndillo by name, 
confessed frankly that he " did not think it right to dispose 
of the Indians' property in that wa\ T ; but as everybody 
was buying missions, he thought he might as well have 
one." 

In many of the missions, squatters, without show or 
semblance of title, were found ; these the officers turned 
out. Finally, General Kearney, to save the trouble of 
cutting any more Gordian knots, declared that all titles 



70 CALIFORNIA AND OREGON. 

of missions and mission lands must be held in abeyance 
till the United States Government should pronounce on 
them. 

For several years the question remained unsettled, and 
the mission properties were held by those who had them 
in possession at the time of the surrender. But in 1856 
the United States Land Commission gave, in reply to a claim 
and petition from the Catholic Bishop of California, a de- 
cision which, considered with reference to the situation of 
the mission properties at the time of the United States' 
possession, was perhaps as near to being equitable as the 
circumstances would admit. But, considered with refer- 
ence to the status of the mission establishments under the 
Spanish rule, to their original extent, the scope of the 
work, and the magnificent success of their experiment up 
to the time of the revolutions, it seems a sadly inadequate 
return of property once rightfully held. Still, it was not 
the province of the United States to repair the injustices 
or make good the thefts of Spain and Mexico ; and any 
attempt to clear up the tangle of confiscations, debts, 
frauds, and robberies in California, for the last quarter of 
a century before the surrender, would have been bootless 
work. 

The Land Commissioner's decision was based on the 
old Spanish law which divided church property into two 
classes, sacred and ecclesiastical, and held it to be inalien- 
able, except in case of necessit}', and then only according 
to provisions of canon law ; in the legal term, it was said 
to be "out of commerce." The sacred property was that 
which had been in a formal manner consecrated to God, — 
church buildings, sacred vessels, vestments, etc. Ecclesi- 
astical property was land held by the Church, and appropri- 
ated to the maintenance of divine worship, or the support of 
the ministry ; buildings occupied \)y the priests, or necessaiy 
for their convenience ; gardens, etc. Following a similar 
division, the propeity of the mission establishments was 
held by the Land Commission to be of two sorts, — mission 
property and church property : the mission property, em- 
bracing the great tracts of land formerly cultivated for the 
community's purpose, it was decided, must be considered 
as government propert}* ; the church property, including, 
with the church buildings, houses of priests, etc., such 



FATHER JUNIPERO AND EIS WORK. 71 

smaller portions of land as were devoted to the immediate 
needs of the ministry, it was decided must still rightfully 
go to the Church. How many acres of the old gardens, 
orchards, vineyards, of the missions could properly be 
claimed by the Church under this head, was of course a 
question ; and it seems to have been decided on very differ- 
ent bases in different missions, as some received much 
more than others. But all the church buildings, priests' 
houses, and some acres of land, more or less, with each, 
w r ere pronounced by this decision to have been "before 
the treaty of G-uadalupe Hidalgo solemnly dedicated to 
the use of the Church, and therefore withdrawn from com- 
merce ; " " such an interest is protected by the provisions 
of the treaty, and must be held inviolate under our laws." 
Thus were returned at last, into the inalienable possession 
of the Catholic Church, all that were left of the old mis- 
sion churches, and some fragments of the mission lands. 
Many of them are still in operation as curacies ; others 
are in ruins ; of some not a trace is left, — not even a 
stone. 

At San Diego the walls of the old church are still stand- 
ing, unroofed, and crumbling daily. It was used as a 
cavalry barracks during the war of 1846, and has been a 
sheepfold since. Opposite it is an olive orchard, of superb 
hoary trees still in bearing ; a cactus wall twenty feet 
high, and a cluster of date palms, are all that remain of 
the friars' garden. 

At San Juan Capistrano, the next mission to the north, 
some parts of the buildings are still habitable. Service is 
held regularly in one of the small chapels. The priest 
lives there, and ekes out his little income by renting some 
of the mouldering rooms. The church is a splendid ruin. 
It was of stone, a hundred and fifty feet long bj* a hundred 
in width, with walls five feet thick, a dome eighty feet 
high, and a fine belfry of arches in which four bells rang. 
It was thrown down bj T an earthquake in 1812, on the day 
of the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. Morning mass 
was going on, and the church was thronged ; thirty persons 
were killed, and man}* more injured. 

The little hamlet of San Juan Capistrano lies in harbor, 
as it were, looking out on its glimpse of sea, between two 
low spurs of broken and rolling hills, w r hich in June are 



72 CALIFORNIA AND OREGON. 

covered with shining yellow and blue and green, iridescent 
as a peacock's neck. It is worth going across the con- 
tinent to come into the village at sunset of a June day. 
The peace, silence, and beaut} 7 of the spot are brooded 
over and dominated by the grand gray ruin, lifting the 
whole scene into an ineffable harmony. Wandering in 
room after room, court after court, through corridors with 
red-tiled roofs and hundreds of broad Roman arches, over 
fallen pillars, and through carved doorways, whose un- 
trodden thresholds have sunk out of sight in summer 
grasses, one asks himself if he be indeed in America. On 
the interior walls are still to be seen spaces of brilliant 
fresco- work, in Byzantine patterns of superb reel, pale 
green, gray and blue ; and the corridors are paved with 
tiles, large and square. It was our good fortune to have 
with us, in San Juan Capistrano, a white-haired Mexican, 
who in his boyhood had spent a } T ear in the mission. He 
remembered as if it were yesterday its bustling life of fifty 
years ago, when the arched corridor ran unbroken around 
the great courtyard, three hundred feet square, and was 
often filled with Indians, friars, officers, and gay Mexican 
ladies looking on at a bull-fight in the centre. He remem- 
bered the splendid library, filled from ceiling to floor with 
books, extending one whole side of the square : in a corner, 
where had been the room in which he used to see sixty 
Indian women weaving at looms, we stood ankle-deep in 
furzy weeds and grass. He showed us the doorway, now 
closed up, w T hich led into the friars' parlor. To this door, 
every Sunday, after mass, came the Indians, in long proces- 
sions, to get their weekly gifts. Each one received some- 
thing, — a handkerchief, dress, trinket, or money. While 
their gifts were being distributed, a band often or twelve 
performers, all Indians, plaj-ed lively airs on brass and 
stringed instruments. In a little baptistery, dusky with 
cobweb and mould, we found huddled a group of wooden 
statues of saints, which once stood in niches in the church ; 
on their heads were faded and brittle wreaths, left from 
the last occasion on which the}' had done duty. One had 
lost an eye ; another a hand. The gilding and covering of 
their robes were dimmed and defaced. But they had a 
dignity which nothing could destroy. The contours were 
singularly expressive and fine, and the rendering of the 



FATHER JUNIPERO AND HIS WORK. 73 

drapery was indeed wonderful, — flowing robes and gath- 
ered and lifted mantles, all carved in solid wood. 

There are statues of this sort to be seen in several of 
the old mission churches. They were all carved by the 
Indians, mairy of whom showed great talent in that direc- 
tion. There is also in the office of the justice — or alcalde, 
as he is still called — of San Juan Capistrano, a carved 
chair of noticeably bold and graceful design made b}' In- 
dian workmen. A few tatters of heavy crimson brocade 
hang on it still, relics of the time when it formed part of 
a gorgeous paraphernalia and service. 

Even finer than the ruins of San Juan Capistrano are 
those of the church at San Luis Re}- . It has a perfectly 
proportioned dome over the chancel, and beautiful groined 
arches on either hand and over the altar. Four broad 
pilasters on each side of the church are frescoed in a curi- 
ous mixing of blues, light and dark, with reds and black, 
which have faded and blended into a delicious tone. A 
Byzantine pulpit hanging high on the wall, and three old 
wooden statues in niches, are the only decorations left. 
Piles of dirt and rubbish fill the space in front of the altar, 
and grass and weeds are growing in the corners ; great 
flocks of wild doves live in the roof, and have made the 
whole place unclean and foul-aired. An old Mexican, 
eighty }~ears old, a former servant of the mission, has the 
ruin in charge, and keeps the doors locked still, as if there 
were treasure to guard. The old man is called " alcalde " 
by the village people, and seems pleased to be so ad- 
dressed. His face is like wrinkled parchment, and he 
walks bent into a parenthesis, but his eyes are bright and 
young. As he totters along, literally holding his rags to- 
gether, discoursing warmly of the splendors he recollects, 
he seems indeed a ghost from the old times. 

The most desolate ruin of all is that of the La Purissima 
Mission. It is in the Lompoc valle} T , two days' easj- jour- 
ney north of Santa Barbara. Nothing is left there but 
one long, low adobe building, w r ith a few arches of the cor- 
ridor ; the doors stand open, the roof is falling in : it has 
been so often used as a stable and sheepfold, that even the 
grasses are killed around it. The painted pulpit hangs half 
falling on the wall, its stairs are gone, and its sounding- 
beard is slanting awrj T . Inside the broken altar-rail is 



74 CALIFORNIA AND OREGON. 

a pile of stones, earth, and rubbish, thrown up b} r seekers 
after buried treasures ; in the farther corner another pile 
and hole, the home of a badger ; mud-swallows' nests are 
thick on the cornice, and cobwebbecl rags of the old can- 
vas ceiling hang fluttering overhead. The only trace of 
the ancient cultivation is a pear-orchard a few rods off, 
which must have been a splendid sight in its day ; it is at 
least two hundred yards square, with a double row of trees 
all around, so placed as to leave between them a walk fifty 
or sixty feet wide. Bits of broken aqueduct here and there, 
and a large, round stone tank overgrown by grass, showed 
where the life of the orchard used to flow in , it has been 
many years slowly dying of thirst. Man}' of the trees are 
gone, and those that remain stretch out gaunt and shriv- 
elled boughs, which, though still bearing fruit, look like 
arms tossing in vain reproach and entreaty ; a few pinched 
little blossoms seemed to heighten rather than lessen their 
melancholy look. 

At San Juan Bautista there lingers more of the atmos- 
phere of the olden time than is to be found in any other 
place in California. The mission church is w r ell preserved ; 
its grounds are enclosed and cared for ; in its garden are 
still blooming roses and vines, in the shelter of palms, and 
with the old stone sun-dial to tell time. ' In the sacrist} 7 
are oak chests, full of gorgeous vestments of brocades, 
with silver and gold laces. On one of these robes is an 
interesting relic. A lost or worn-out silken tassel had 
been replaced by the ^patient Indian workers with one of 
fine-shredded rawhide ; the shreds wound with silver wire, 
and twisted into tiny rosettes and loops, closety imitating 
the silver device. The church fronts south, on a little 
green-locust walled plaza, — the sleepiest, sunniest, dream- 
iest place in the world. To the east the land falls off ab- 
ruptly, so that the paling on that side of the plaza is 
outlined against the sky, and its little locked gate looks as 
if it would open into the heavens. The mission buildings 
used to surround this plaza ; after the friars' da}- came 
rich men living there ; and a charming inn is kept now in 
one of their old adobe houses. On the east side of the 
church is a succession of three terraces leading down to a 
valley. On the upper one is the old graveyard, in which 
it is said there are sleeping four thousand Indians. 



FATHER JUNIPERO AND HIS WORK. 75 

In 1825 there were spoken at this mission thirteen dif- 
ferent Indian dialects. 

Just behind the church is an orphan girls' school, kept 
b}- the Sisters of the Sacred Heart. At six o'clock every 
morning the bells of the church ring for mass as the}' used 
to ring when over a thousand Indians flocked at the sum- 
mons. To-day, at the sound, there comes a procession of 
little girls and }~oung maidens, the black-robed sisters walk- 
ing before them with crossed hands and placid faces. One 
or two Mexican women, with shawls over their heads, 
steal across the faint paths of the plaza, and enter the 
church. 

I shall always recollect the morning when I went, too. 
The silence of the plaza was in. itself a memorial service, 
with locust blossoms swinging incense. It was barely 
dawn in the church. As the shrill yet sweet childish 
'voices lifted up the strains of the Kyrie Eleison, I seemed 
to see the face of Father Junipero in the dim lighted chan- 
cel, and the benediction was as solemn as if he himself 
had spoken it. Wiry the little town of San Juan Bautista 
continues to exist is a marvel. It is shut out and cut off 
from everything ; only two or three hundred souls are left 
in it ; its streets are grass-grown ; half its houses are empty. 
But it has a charm of sun, valley, hill, and seaward off-look 
unsurpassed in all California. Lingering out a peaceful 
century there are inany old men and women, whose memo- 
ries are like magic glasses, reproducing the pictures of the 
past. One such we found : a Mexican woman eighty-five 
3'ears old, portly, jolly, keen-tongued, keen-eyed ; the widow 
of one of the soldiers of the old mission guard. She had 
had twelve children ; she had never been ill a week in her 
life ; she is now the village nurse, and almost doctor. 
Sixty years back she remembered. " The Indians used to 
be in San Juan Bautista like sheep," she said, "by the 
thousand and thousand." They were always good, and 
the padres were always kind. Fifty oxen were killed for 
food every eight days, and everybody had all he wanted to 
eat. There was much more water then than now, plenty 
of rain, and the streams always full. "I don't know 
whether you or we were bad, that it has been taken away 
by God," she said, with a quick glance, half humorous, 
half antagonistic. 



76 CALIFORNIA AND OREGON. 

The Santa Barbara Mission is still in the charge of 
Franciscans, the only one remaining in their possession. 
It is now called a college for apostolic missionaiy work, 
and there are living within its walls eight members of the 
order. One of them is very old, — a friar of the ancient 
regime ; his benevolent face is well known throughout the 
country, and there are in many a town and remote hamlet 
men and women who wait alwa} T s for his coming before 
the} T will make confession. He is like St. Francis's first 
followers : the obligations of poverty and charity still hold 
to him the literal fulness of the original bond. He gives 
away garment after garment, leaving himself without pro- 
tection against cold ; and the brothers are forced to lock up 
and hide from him all provisions, or he would leave the 
house bare of food. He often kneels from midnight to 
dawn on the stone floor of the church, prating and chant- 
ing psalms ; and when a terrible epidemic of small-pox 
broke out some 3-ears ago, he labored day and night, nurs- 
ing the worst victims of it, shriving them, and burying 
them with his own hands. He is past eiglnVr, and has not 
much longer to stay. He has outlived many things beside 
his own prime : the da} 7 of the sort of faith and work to 
which his spirit is attuned has passed by forever. 

The mission buildings stand on high ground, three miles 
from the beach, west of the town and above it, looking to 
the sea. In the morning the sun's first rays flash full on 
its front, and at evening they linger late on its western 
wall. It is an inalienable benediction to the place. The 
longer one stays there the more he is aware of the influ- 
ence on his soul, as well as of the importance in the land- 
scape of the benign and state!}' edifice. 

On the corridor of the inner court hangs a bell which is 
rung for the hours of the daily offices and secular duties. 
It is also struck whenever a friar dies, to announce that all 
is over. It is the duty of the brother who has watched the 
last breath of the dying one to go immediately and strike 
this bell. Its sad note has echoed many times through 
the corridors. One of the brothers said, last 3'ear, — 

" The first time I rang that bell to announce a death, 
there were fifteen of us left. Now there are only eight." 

The sentence itself fell on my ear like the note of a 
passing-bell. It seems a not unfitting last word to this 



FATHER JUNIPERO AND HIS WORK. 77 

slight and fragmentary sketch of the labors of the Fran- 
ciscan Order in California. 

Still more fitting, however, are the words of a historian, 
who, living in California and thoroughly knowing its his- 
toiy from first to last, has borne the following eloquent 
testimony to the friars and their work : — 

11 The results of the mission scheme of Christianization and 
colonization were such as to justify the plans of the wise states- 
man who devised it, and to gladden the hearts of the pious men 
who devoted their lives to its execution. 

" At the end of sixty years the missionaries of Upper Califor- 
nia found themselves in the possession of twenty-one prosperous 
missions, planted on a line of about seven hundred miles, run- 
ning from San Diego north to the latitude of Sonoma. More 
than thirty thousand Indian converts were lodged in the mission 
buildings, receiving religious culture, assisting at divine wor- 
ship, and cheerfully performing their easy tasks. ... If we ask 
where are now the thirty thousand Christianized Indians who 
once enjoyed the beneficence and created the wealth of the 
twenty-one Catholic missions of California, and then contem- 
plate the most wretched of all want of systems which has sur- 
rounded them under our own government, we shall not withhold 
our admiration from those good and devoted men who, with 
such wisdom, sagacity, and self-sacrifice, reared these wonderful 
institutions in the wilderness of California. They at least 
would have preserved these Indian races if they had been left 
to pursue unmolested their work of pious beneficence." 1 

1 John W. Dwinelle's Colonial History of San Francisco, pp. 44-87. 



Note. — The author desires to express her acknowledgments to 
H. H. Bancroft, of San Francisco, who kindly put at her disposal all 
the resources of his invaluable library ; also to the Superior of the 
Franciscan College in Santa Barbara, for the loan of important books 
and manuscripts and the photograph of Father Junipero. 



THE PRESENT CONDITION OF THE MISSION 
INDIANS IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA. 

The old laws of the kingdom of the Indies are interest- 
ing reading, especially those portions of them relating to 
Indians. A certain fine and chivalrous quality of honor 
toward the helpless and tenderness toward the dependent 
runs all through their quaint and cumbrous paragraphs. 

It is not until one studies these laws in connection 
w r ith the history of the confusions and revolutions of the 
secularization period, and of the American conquest 
of California, that it becomes possible to understand 
how the California Mission Indians could have been left 
so absolutely unprotected, as the} r were, in the matter 
of ownership of the lands they had cultivated for sixty 
years. 

"We command," said the Spanish king, "that the sale, 
grant, and composition of lands be executed with such at- 
tention that the Indians be left in possession of the full 
amount of lands belonging to them, either singly or in 
communities, together with their rivers and waters ; and 
the lands which they shall have drained or otherwise im- 
proved, whereby the} T ma} x b}^ their own industry have ren- 
dered them fertile, are reserved, in the first place, and can 
in no case be sold or aliened. And the judges who have 
been sent thither shall specif} r what Indians they may have 
found on the land, and what lands they shall have left in pos- 
session of each of the elders of tribes, caciques, governors, 
or communities." 

Grazing estates for cattle are ordered to be located 
" apart from the fields and villages of the Indians." The 
king's command is that no such estates shall be granted 
"in any parts or place where any damage can accrue to 



MISSION INDIANS IN CALIFORNIA. 79 

the Indians." Every grant of land must be made " with- 
out prejudice to the Indians;" and "such as may have 
been granted to their prejudice and injury" must be 
u restored to whomever they by right shall belong." 

4 ' In order to avoid the inconveniences and damages re- 
sulting from the sale or gift to Spaniards of tracts of land 
to the prejudice of Indians, upon the suspicious testimony 
of witnesses," the king orders that all sales and gifts are 
to be made before the attorneys of the royal audiencias, 
and " always with an eye to the benefit of the Indians ; " 
and u the king's solicitors are to be protectors of the 
Indians and plead for them." " After distributing to the 
Indians what they may justly want to cultivate, sow, and 
raise cattle, confirming to them what they now hold, and 
granting what the}' ma}- want besides, all the remaining 
land may be reserved to us," says the old decree, " clear 
of any incumbrance, for the purpose of being given as 
rewards, or disposed of according to our pleasure." 

In those days everything in New Spain was thus ordered 
by royal decrees. Nobody had grants of land in the sense 
in which we use the word. When the friars wished to re- 
ward an industrious and capable Indian, and test his ca- 
pacity to take care of himself and family, by giving him 
a little farm of his own, all they had to do, or did, was to 
mark off the portion of land, put the Indian on it and tell 
him it was his. There would appear to have been little 
more formalit}' than this in the establishing of the Indian 
pueblos which were formed in the beginning of the secu- 
larization period. Governor Figueroa, in an address in 
1834, speaks of three of these, San- Juan Capistrano, San 
Dieguito, and Las Flores, says that they are flourishing, 
and that the comparison between the condition of these 
Indians and that of the Spanish townsmen in the same 
region is altogether in favor of the Indians. 

On Nov. 16, 1835, eighty-one u desafiliados " — as the 
ex-neophytes of missions were called — of the San Luis 
Rev Mission settled themselves in the San Pasqual valley, 
which was an appanage of that mission. These Indian 
communities appear to have had no documents to show 
their right, either as communities or individuals, to the 
land on which they had settled. At any rate, they had 
nothing which amounted to a protection, or stood in the 



80 CALIFORNIA AND OREGON. 

way of settlers who coveted their lands. It is years since 
the last trace of the pueblos Las Flores and San Diegnito 
disappeared ; and the San Pasqual valley is entirely taken 
up by white settlers, chiefly on pre-emption claims. San 
Juan Capistrano is the only one of the four where are to 
be found any Indians' homes. If those who had banded 
themselves together and had been set off into pueblos had 
no recognizable or defensible title, how much more help- 
less and defenceless were individuals, or small communities 
without any such semblance of pueblo organization ! 

Most of the original Mexican grants included tracts of 
land on which Indians were living, sometimes large vil- 
lages of them. In many of these grants, in accordance 
with the old Spanish law or custom^ was incorporated a 
clause protecting the Indians. They were to be left un- 
disturbed in their homes : the portion of the grant occu- 
pied by them did not belong to the grantee in an}- such 
sense as to entitle him to eject them. The land on which 
the}' were living, and the land they were cultivating at the 
time of the «t, belonged to them as long as they 

pleased to dceu^ it. In many of the grants the boun- 
daries of the Indians' reserved portion of the property were 
carefully marked off; and the instances were rare in which 
Mexican grantees disturbed or in any way interfered with 
Indians living on their estates. There was no reason why 
they should. There was plenty of land and to spare, and 
it was simply a convenience and an advantage to have the 
skilled and docile Indian laborer on the ground. 

But when the easy-going, generous, improvident Mexi- 
can needed or desired to sell his grant, and the sharp 
American was on hand to buy it, then was brought to light 
the helplessness of the Indians' position. What cared 
the sharp American for that sentimental clause, " without 
injury to the Indians"? Not a farthing. Why should 
he? His government, before him, had decided that all 
the lands belonging to the old missions, excepting the 
small portions technically held as church property, and 
therefore "out of commerce," were government lands. 
None of the Indians living on those lands at the time of 
the American possession were held to have any right — 
not even '.'color of right" — to them. That they and 
their ancestors had been cultivating them for three quarters 



MISSION INDIANS IN CALIFORNIA. 81 

of a century made no difference. Americans wishing 
to pre-empt claims on any of these so-called government 
lands did not regard the presence on them of Indian fam- 
ilies or communities as any more of a barrier than the 
presence of so many coyotes or foxes. They would not 
hesitate to certify to the land office that such lands were 
"unoccupied." Still less, then, need the purchaser of 
tracts covered by old Mexican grants hold himself bound 
to regard the poor cumberers of the ground, who, having 
no legal right whatever, had been all their years living on 
the tolerance of a silly, good-hearted Mexican proprietor. 
The American wanted every rod of his land, every drop 
of water on it ; his schemes were boundless ; his greed in- 
satiable ; he had no use for Indians. His plan did not 
embrace them, and could not enlarge itself to take them 
in. They must go. This is, in brief, the summing up of 
the way in which has come about the present pitiable state 
of the California Mission Indians. 

In 1852 a report in regard to these Indians was made 
to the Interior Department by the Hon. ©£D. Wilson, of 
Los Angeles. It is an admirable paper, clear and exhaus- 
tive. Mr. Wilson was an old Californian, had known the 
Indians well, and had been eyewitness to much of the 
cruelty and injustice done them. He says: — 

11 In the fall of the missions, accomplished by private cupid- 
ity and political ambition, philanthropy laments the failure of 
one of the grandest experiments ever made for the elevation of 
this unfortunate race." 

He estimates that there were at that time in the counties 
of Tulare, Santa Barbara, Los Angeles, and San Diego 
over fifteen thousand Indians who had been connected 
with the missions in those counties. They were classified 
as the Tularenos, Cahuillas, San Luisenos, and Dieguenos, 
the latter two being practically one nation, speaking one 
language, and being more generally Christianized than the 
others. They furnished, Mr. Wilson says, l 'the majority 
of the laborers, mechanics, and servants of San Diego and 
Los Angeles counties." They all spoke the Spanish lan- 
guage, and a not inconsiderable number could read and 
write it. They had built all the houses in the country, had 
taught the whites how to make brick, mud mortar, how 



82 CALIFORNIA AND OREGON. 

to use asphalt on roofs ; they understood irrigation, were 
good herders, reapers, etc. The} r were paid only half the 
wages paid to whites ; and being immoderate gamblers, 
often gambled away on Saturday night and Sunday all the}* 
had earned in the week. At that time in Los Angeles 
nearly every other house in town was a grog-shop for In- 
dians. In the San Pasqnal valley there were twenty white 
vagabonds, all rum-sellers, squatted at one time around the 
Indian pueblo. The Los Angeles ayuntamiento had passed 
an edict declaring that " all Indians without masters" — 
significant phrase ! — must live outside the town limits ; 
also, that all Indians who could not show papers from the 
alcalde of the pueblo in which they lived, should be treated 
as " horse thieves and enemies." 

On Sunday nights the squares and streets of Los An- 
geles were often to be seen full of Indians lying about 
helpless in eveiy stage of intoxication. They were picked 
up by scores, unconscious, carried to jail, locked up, and 
early Monda} T morning hired out to the highest bidders at 
the jail gates. Horrible outrages were committed on In- 
dian women and children. In some instances the Indians 
armed to avenge these, and were themselves killed. 

These are a few out of hundreds of similar items to be 
gathered from the newspaper records of the time. Condi- 
tions such as these could have but one outcome. Twenty 
years later, when another special report on the condition 
of the California Mission Indians was asked for by the 
Government, not over five thousand Indians remained to 
be reported on. Vice and cruelty had reaped large har- 
vests each } T ear. Many of the rich valle3 T s, which at the 
time of Mr. Wilson's report had been under cultivation by 
Indians, w-ere now filled by white settlers, the Indians all 
gone, no one could tell where. In some instances whole 
villages of them had been driven off at once by fraudu- 
lently procured and fraudulently enforced claims. One of 
the most heart-rending of these cases was that of the 
Temecula Indians. 

The Temecula valle}' lies in the northeast corner of San 
Diego County. It is watered by two streams and has a 
good soil. The Southern California Railroad now- crosses 
it. It was an appanage of the San Luis Rey Mission, and 
the two hundred Indians who were living there were the 



3IISSI0N INDIANS IN CALIFORNIA. 83 

children and grandchildren of San Luis Re}* neophytes. 
The greater part of the valley was under cultivation. 
They had cattle, horses, sheep. In 1865 a "special 
agent" of the United States Government held a grand 
Indian convention there. Eighteen villages were repre- 
sented, and the numbers of inhabitants, stock, vineyards, 
orchards, were reported. The Indians were greatly elated 
at this evidence of the Government's good intentions to- 
ward them. The}^ set up a tall liberty-pole, and bringing 
forth a United States flag, which the}' had kept carefully 
hidden away ever since the beginning of the civil war, 
they flung it out to the winds in token of their loyalty. 
"It is astonishing," says one of the San Diego news- 
papers of the day, " that these Indians have behaved so 
well, considering the pernicious teachings they have had 
from the secessionists in our midst." 

There was already anxiety in the minds of the Temecula 
Indians as to their title to their lands. All that was in 
existence to show that they had any, was the protecting 
clause in an old Mexican grant. To be sure, the man was 
still alive who had assisted in marking off the boundaries 
of their part of this original Temecula grant ; but his tes- 
timony could establish nothing beyond the letter of the 
clause as it stood. They earnestly implored the agent to 
lay the case before the Interior Department. Whether he 
did or not I do not know, but this is the sequel : On April 
15, 1869, an action was brought in the District Court, in 
San Francisco, by five men, against " Andrew Johnson, 
Thaddeus Stevens, Horace Greeley, and one thousand In- 
dians, and other parties whose names are unknown." It 
was " a bill to quit title," an " action to recover posses- 
sion of certain real estate bounded thus and thus." It 
included the Temecula valley. It was based on grants 
made by Governor Micheltorena in 1844. The defendants 
cited were to appear in court within twenty days. 

The Indians appealed to the Catholic bishop to help 
them. He wrote to one of the judges an imploring letter, 
saying, "Can you not do something to save these poor 
Indians from being driven out?" But the scheme had 
been too skilfully plotted. There was no way — or, at 
any rate, no way was found — of protecting the Indians. 
The day came when a sheriff, bringing a posse of men and 



84 CALIFORNIA AND OREGON. 

a warrant which could not be legally resisted, arrived to 
eject the Indian families from their houses and drive them 
out of the valle}'. The Indians' first impulse was as de- 
termined as it could have been if they had been white, to 
resist the outrage. But on being reasoned with by friends, 
who sadly and with shame explaiued to them that by thus 
resisting, thej^ would simply make it the duty of the sheriff 
to eject them by force, and, if necessary, shoot down 
an\ T who opposed the executing of his warrant, they sub- 
mitted. But the} r refused to lift hand to the moving. 
They sat down, men and women, on the ground, and 
looked on, some wailing and weeping, some dogged and 
silent, while the sheriff and his men took out of the neat 
little adobe houses their small stores of furniture, clothes, 
and food, and piled them on wagons to be carried — 
where? — airywhere the exiles chose, so long as they did 
not chance to choose a piece of any white man's land. 

A Mexican woman is now living in that Temecula val- 
ley T who told me the story of this moving. The facts I had 
learned before from records of one sort and another. But 
standing on the spot, looking at the ruins of the little adobe 
houses, and the walled graveyard full of graves, and hear- 
ing this woman tell how she kept her doors and windows 
shut, and could not bear to look out while the deed was 
being done, I realized forcibly how different a thing is 
history seen from history written and read. 

It took three days to move them. Procession after pro- 
cession, with cries and tears, walked slowly behind the 
wagons carrying their household goods. They took the 
tule roofs off the little houses, and carried them along. 
They could be used again. Some of these Indians, wish- 
ing to sta} T as near as possible to their old home, settled in 
a small valley, only three miles and a half away to the 
south. It was a dreary, hot little valle3 T , bare, with low, 
rocky buttes cropping out on either side, and with scanty 
growths of bushes ; there was not a drop of water in it. 
Here the exiles went to work again ; built their huts of 
reeds and straw ; set up a booth of boughs for the priest, 
when he came, to say mass in ; and a rude wooden cross 
to consecrate their new graveyard on a stony hill-side. 
They put their huts on barren knolls here and there, where 
nothing could grow. On the tillable land they planted 



MISSION INDIANS IN CALIFORNIA. 85 

wheat or barley or orchards, — some patches not ten feet 
square, the largest not over three or four acres. Thev 
hollowed out the base of one of the rocky buttes, sunk a 
well there, and found water. 

I think none of us who saw this little refugee village will 
ever forget it. The whole place was a series of pictures ; 
and knowing its histoiy, we found in each low roof and 
paling the dignity of heroic achievement. Near man}' of 
the huts stood great round baskets woven of twigs, reach- 
ing half-way up to the eaves and looking like huge birds'- 
nests. These were their granaries, holding acorns and 
wheat. "Women with red pottery jars on their heads and 
on their backs were going to and from the well ; old men 
were creeping about, bent over, carrying loads of fagots 
that would have seemed heavy for a donkey ; aged women 
sitting on the ground were diligently plaiting baskets, too 
bus}' or too old to give more than a passing look at us. 
A group of women was at work washing wool in great 
stone bowls, probabl}' hundreds of years old. The inte- 
riors of some of the houses were exquisitel}' neat and 
orderly, with touching attempts ^at adornment, — pretty 
baskets and shelves hanging on the walls, and over the 
beds canopies of bright calico. On some of the beds, the 
sheets and pillow-cases were trimmed with wide hand- 
wrought lace, made by the Indian women themselves. 
This is one of their arts which date back to the mission 
days. Some of the lace is beautiful and fine, and of pat- 
terns like the old church laces. It was pitiful to see the 
poor creatures in almost every one of the hovels bringing 
out a yard or two of their lace to sell ; and there was 
hardly a house which had not the lace-maker's frame hang- 
ing on the wall, with an unfinished piece of lace stretched 
in it. The making of this lace requires much time and 
patience. It is done by first drawing out all the length- 
wise threads of a piece of fine linen or cotton ; then the 
threads which are left are sewed over and over into an 
endless variety of intricate patterns. Sometimes the 
whole design is clone in solid button-hole stitch, or solid 
figures are filled in on an open network made of the 
threads. The baskets were finely woven, of good shapes, 
and excellent decorative patterns in brown and black on 
3'ellow or white. 



86 CALIFORNIA AND OREGON. 

Every face, except those of the very young, was sari be3'ond 
description. They were stamped indelibly by generations 
of suffering, immovable distrust also underlying the sorrow. 
It was hard to make them smile. To all our expressions of 
good-will and interest they seemed indifferent, and received 
in silence the mone} T we paid them for baskets and lace. 

The word "Temecula" is an Indian word, signifying 
" grief" or "mourning." It seems to have had a strangely 
prophetic fitness for the valley to which it was given. 

While I am writing these lines, the news comes that, 
by an executive order of the President, the little valley in 
which these Indians took refuge has been set apart for 
them as a reservation. No doubt they know how much 
executive orders creating Indian reservations are worth. 
There have been several such made and revoked in Cali- 
fornia within their memories. The San Pasqual valley 
w r as at one time set apart by executive order as a reserva- 
tion for Indians. This was in 1870. There were then 
living in the valley between two and three hundred In- 
dians ; some of them had been members of the original 
pueblo established there in 1835. 

The comments of the California newspapers on this ex- 
ecutive order are amusing, or would be if they did not 
record such traged} 7 . It was followed by an outburst of 
virtuous indignation all along the coast. One paper said : 

" The iniquity of this scheme is made manifest when we state 
the fact that the Indians of that part of the State are Mission In- 
dians who are settled in villages and engaged in farming like the 
white settlers. ... It would be gross injustice to the Indians them- 
selves as well as to the white settlers in San Pasqual. . . . These 
Indians are as fixed in their habitations as the whites, and have 
fruit-trees, buildings, and other valuable improvements to make 
them contented and comfortable. Until within the past two or 
three years they raised more fruit than the white settlers of the 
southern counties. There is belonging to an Indian family 
there a fig-tree that is the largest in the State, covering a space 
sixty paces in diameter. ... A remonstrance signed by over five 
hundred citizens and indorsed by every office-holder in the 
county has gone on to Washington against this swindle. . . . 
This act on the part of the Government is no better than high- 
way robbery, and the persons engaged in it are too base to be 
called men. There is not a person in either of these valleys that 
will not be ruined pecuniarily if these orders are enforced." 



MISSION INDIANS IN CALIFORNIA. 87 

Looking through files of newspapers of that time, I 
found onty one that had the moral courage to uphold the 
measure. That paper said, — 

" Most of the inhabitants are now Indians who desire to be 
protected in their ancient possessions; and the Government is 
about to give them that protection, after a long delay." 

One editor, having nearly exhausted the resources of in- 
vective and false statement, actually had the hardihood to 
sa} T that Indians could not be induced to live on this reser- 
vation because "there are no acorn-bearing trees there, 
and the acorns furnish their principal food." 

The congressmen and their clients were successful. The 
order was revoked. In less than four years the San Pas- 
qual Indians are heard from again. A justice of the 
peace in the San Pasqual valley writes to the district 
attorney to know if anything can be done to protect these 
Indians. 

" Last year," he says, " the heart of this rancheria (vil- 
lage) was filed on and pre-empted. The settlers are begin- 
ning to plough up the land. The Los Angeles Land Office 
has informed the Indians that, not being citizens, they 
cannot retain any claim. It seems very hard," says the 
judge, " aside from the danger of difficulties likely to arise 
from it." 

About this time a bill introduced in Congress to pro- 
vide homes for the Mission Indians on the reservation 
plan was reported unfavorably upon by a Senate commit- 
tee, on the ground that all the Mission Indians were really 
American citizens. The year following, the chief of the 
Pala Indians, being brought to the county clerk's office to 
register as a voter, was refused on the ground that, being 
an Indian, he was not a citizen. In 1850 a small band 
of Indians living in San Diego County were taxed to the 
amount of six hundred dollars, which they paid, the sheriff 
said, "without a murmur." The next 3-ear they refused. 
The sheriff wrote to the district attorne}', who replied that 
the tax must be paid. The Indians said the}' had no 
money. They had only bows, arrows, wigwams, and a few 
cattle. Finalty, they were compelled to drive in enough of 
their cattle to pay the tax. One of the San Diego news- 



88 CALIFORNIA AND OREGON. 

papers spoke of the transaction as u a small business to un- 
dertake to collect taxes from a parcel of naked Indians." 

The year before these events happened a special agent, 
John G. Ames, had been sent out by the Government to 
investigate and report upon the condition of the Mission 
Indians. He had assured them "of the sincere desire of 
the Government to secure their rights and promote their in- 
terests, and of its intention to do whatever might be found 
practicable in this direction." He told them he had been 
" sent out by the Government to hear their story, to ex- 
amine carefully into their condition, and to recommend 
such measures as seemed under the circumstances most 
desirable." 

Mr. Ames found in the San Pasqual valley a white man 
who had just built for himself a good house, and claimed 
to have pre-empted the greater part of the Indians' village. 
He " had actually paid the price of the land to the reg- 
ister of the land office of the district, and was daily ex- 
pecting the patent from Washington. He owned that it 
was hard to wrest from these well-disposed and industri- 
ous creatures the homes they had built up. ' But,' said 
he, ' if I had not done it, somebod}' else would ; for all 
agree that the Indian has no right to public lands.' " 

This sketch of the history of the San Pasqual and Te- 
mecula bands of Indians is a fair showing of what, with 
little variation, has been the fate of the Mission Indians 
all through Southern California. The combination of 
cruelty and unprincipled greed on the part of the Ameri- 
can settlers, with culpable ignorance, indifference, and 
neglect on the part of the Government at Washington has 
resulted in an aggregate of monstrous injustice, which no 
one can fully realize without studying the facts on the 
ground. In the winter of 1882 I visited this San Pas- 
qual valle}'. I drove over from San Diego with the Cath- 
olic priest, who goes there three or four Sunday's in a 
year, to hold service in a little adobe chapel built by the 
Indians in the days of their prosperity. This beautiful 
valley is from one to three miles wide, and perhaps twelve 
long. It is walled by 'high-rolling, soft-contoured hills, 
which are now one continuous wheat-field. There are, in 
sight of the chapel, a dozen or so adobe houses, man}' of 
which were built by the Indians ; in all of them except 



MISSION INDIANS IN CALIFORNIA. 89 

one are now living the robber whites, who have driven the 
Indians out ; onVy one Indian still remains in the valley. 
He earns a meagre living for himself and family hy doing- 
day's work for the farmers who have taken his land. The 
rest of the Indians are hidden away in the canons and rifts 
of the near hills, — wherever the}' can find a bit of ground to 
keep a horse or two and raise a little grain. They have 
sought the most inaccessible spots, reached often by miles 
of difficult trail. They have fled into secret lairs like 
hunted wild beasts. The Catholic priest of San Diego is 
much beloved by them. He has been their friend for 
many 3-ears. When he goes to hold service, they gather 
from their various hiding-places and refuges ; sometimes, 
on a special fete daj~, over two hundred come. But on 
the da} T I was there, the priest being a young man who 
was a stranger to them, only a few were present. It was 
a pitiful sight. The dilapidated adobe building, empty 
and comfortless ; the ragged poverty-stricken creatures, 
kneeling on the bare ground, — a few Mexicans, with some 
gaudiness of attire, setting off the Indians' poverty still 
more. In front of the chapel, on a rough cross-beam sup- 
ported by two forked posts, set awry in the ground, swung 
a bell bearing the date of 1770. It was one of the bells of 
the old San Diego Mission. Standing bareheaded, the 
priest rang it long and loud : he rang it several times be- 
fore the leisurely groups that were plainly to be seen in 
doorways or on roadsides bestirred themselves to make 
any haste to come. After the service I had a long talk, 
through an interpreter, with an aged Indian, the oldest 
now living in the county. He is said to be considerably 
over a hundred, and his looks corroborate the statement. 
He is almost blind, and has snow-white hair, and a strange 
voice, a kind of shrill whisper. He says he recollects the 
rebuilding of the San Diego Mission ; though he was a 
very little boy then, he helped to carry the mud mortar. 
This was one hundred and three years ago. Instances of 
much greater longevity than this, however, are not uncom- 
mon among the California Indians. I asked if he had a 
good time in the mission. "Yes, } T es," he said, turning 
his sightless e3'es up to the sky ; " much good time," 
"plenty to eat," " atoler" " pozzole" " meat ; " now, "no 
meat;" "all the time to beg, beg;" "all the time 



90 CALIFORNIA AND OREGON. 

hungry." His wife, who is older than he, is still living, 
though " her hair is not so white." She was ill, and was 
with relatives far away in the mountains ; he lifted his 
hand and pointed in the direction of the place. "Much 
sick, much sick ; she will never walk any more," he said, 
with deep feeling in his voice. 

During the afternoon the Indians were continually com- 
ing and going at the shop connected with the inn where 
we had stopped, some four miles from the valle}\ The 
keeper of the shop and inn said he always trusted them. 
They were ' ' good pay." ' ' Give them their time and they '11 
alwa3*s pa} T ; and if the}' die their relations will pay the last 
cent." Some of them he would "trust any time as high 
as twenty dollars." When I asked him how the}^ earned 
their mone} T , he seemed to have no very distinct idea. 
Some of them had a little stock ; they might now and then 
sell a horse or a cow, he said ; they hired as laborers 
whenever the} T could get a chance, working at sheep- 
shearing in the spring and autumn, and at grape-picking 
in the vintage season. A few of them had a little wheat 
to sell ; sometimes they paid him in wheat. There were 
not nearly so man}' of them, however, as there had been 
when he first opened his shop ; not half so many, he 
thought. Where had they gone ? He shrugged his shoul- 
ders. " Who knows ? " he said. 

The most wretched of all the Mission Indians now, 
however, are not these who have been thus driven into hill 
fastnesses and waterless valleys to wrest a living where 
white men would starve. There is in their fate the climax 
of misery, but not of degradation. The latter cannot be 
reached in the wilderness. It takes the neighborhood of 
the white man to accomplish it. On the outskirts of the 
town of San Diego are to be seen, here and there, hud- 
dled groups of what, at a distance, might be taken for 
piles of refuse and brush, old blankets, old patches of 
sail-cloth, old calico, dead pine boughs, and sticks all 
heaped together in shapeless mounds ; hollow, one per- 
ceives on coming nearer them, and high enough for human 
beings to creep under. These are the homes of Indians. 
I have seen the poorest huts of the most poverty-stricken 
wilds in Italy, Bavaria, Norway, and New Mexico ; but 
never have I seen anything, in shape of shelter for human 



MISSION INDIANS IN CALIFORNIA. 91 

creatures, so loathsome as the kennels in which some of 
the San Diego Indians are living. Most of these Indians 
are miserable, worthless beggars, drunkards of course, and 
worse. Even for its own sake, it would seem that the 
town would devise some scheme of help and redemption 
for such outcasts. There is a school in San Diego for the 
Indian children ; it is supported in part by the Govern- 
ment, in part by charity ; but work must be practically 
thrown away on children that are to spend eighteen hours 
out of the twenty-four surrounded by such filth and vice. 

Coining from the stud}' of the records of the old mis- 
sion times, with the picture fresh and vivid of the tranquil 
industry and comfort of the Indians' lives in the mission 
establishments, one gazes with double grief on such a 
spectacle as this. Some of these Indian hovels are within 
a short distance of the beach where the friars first landed, 
in 1769, and began their work. No doubt, Father Ju- 
nipero and Father Crespf, arm in arm, in ardent converse, 
full of glowing anticipation of the grand future results of 
their labors, walked again and again, up and down, on the 
very spot where these miserable wretches are living to-day. 
One cannot fancy Father Junipero's fiery soul, to whatever 
far sphere it ma}* have been translated, looking down on 
this ruin without pangs of indignation. 

There are still left in the mountain ranges of South 
California a few Indian villages which will probably, for 
some time to come, preserve their independent existence. 
Some of them number as many as two or three hundred 
inhabitants. Each has its chief, or, as he is now called, 
"capitan." They have their own system of government 
of the villages ; it is autocratic, but in the main it works 
well. In one of these villages, that of the Cahuillas, sit- 
uated in the San Jacinto range, is a school whose teacher 
is paid by the United States Government. She is a widow 
with one little daughter. She has built for herself a room 
adjoining the school-house. In this she lives alone, with 
her child, in the heart of the Indian village ; there is not 
a white person within ten miles. She says that the vil- 
lage is as well-ordered, quiet, and peaceable as it is possi- 
ble for a village to be ; and she feels far safer, surrounded 
by these three hundred Cahuillas, than she would feel in 
most of the California towns. The Cahuillas (pronounced 



92 CALIFORNIA AND OREGON. 

Kawee} T ahs) were one of the fiercest and most powerful of 
the tribes. The name signifies "master," or "powerful 
nation." A great number of the neophytes of the San 
Gabriel Mission were from this tribe ; but a large propor- 
tion of them were never attached to any mission. 

Their last great chief, Juan Antonio, died twent} T years 
ago. At the time of the Mexican War he received the 
title of General from General Kearney, and never after- 
ward appeared in the villages of the whites without some 
fragmentary attempts at military uniform . He must have 
been a grand character, with all his barbarism. He ruled 
his band like an emperor, and never rode abroad without 
an escort of from twent}' to thirty men. When he stopped 
one of his Indians ran forward, bent down, took off his 
spurs, then, kneeling on all-fours, made of his back a 
stool, on which Juan stepped in dismounting and mount- 
ing. In 1850 an Indian of this tribe, having murdered 
another Indian, was taken prisoner by the civil authorities 
and carried to Jurupa to be tried. Before the proceedings 
had begun, Juan, with a big following of armed Indians, 
dashed up to the court-house, strode in alone, and de- 
manded that the prisoner be surrendered to him. 

" I come not here as a child," he said. " I wish to pun- 
ish my people my own way. If they deserve hanging, I 
will hang them. If a white man deserves hanging, let the 
white man hang him. I am done." 

The prisoner was given up. The Indians strapped him 
on a horse, and rode back to their village, where, in an 
open grave, the body of the murdered man had been laid. 
Into this grave, on the top of the corpse of his victim, 
Juan Antonio, with his own hands, flung the murderer 
alive, and ordered the grave instantly filled up with earth. 

There are said to have been other instances of his deal- 
ings with offenders nearly as summary and severe as this. 
He is described as looking like an old African lion, shaggy 
and fierce ; but he was alwa3 T s cordial and affectionate in his 
relations with the whites. He died in 1863, of small-pox, 
in a terrible epidemic which carried off thousands of Indians. 

This Cahuilla village is in a small valle} r , high up in the 
San Jacinto range. The Indians are very poor, but they 
are industrious and hard-working. The men raise stock, 
and go out in bands as sheep-shearers and harvesters. 



MISSION INDIANS IN CALIFORNIA. 93 

The women make baskets, lace, and from the fibre of the 
yucca plant, beautiful and durable mats, called. " cocas," 
which are much sought after by California ranchmen as 
saddle-mats. The yucca fibres are soaked and beaten 
like flax ; some are dyed brown, some bleached white, and 
the two woven together in a great variety of patterns. 

In the San Jacinto valley, some thirty miles south of 
these Cahuillas, is another Indian village called Saboba. 
These Indians have occupied and cultivated this ground 
since the days of the missions. They have good adobe 
houses, many acres of wheat-fields, little peach and apri- 
cot orchards, irrigating ditches, and some fences. In one 
of the houses I found a neatly laid wooden floor, a sewing- 
machine, and the walls covered with pictures cut from 
illustrated newspapers which had been given to them by 
the school teacher. There is a Government school here, 
numbering from twent} T to thirty ; the children read as 
well as average white children of their age, and in man- 
ners and in apparent interest in their studies, were far 
above the average of children in the public schools. 

One of the colon}' schemes, so common now in Cali- 
fornia, has been formed for the opening up and settling of 
the San Jacinto valley. This Indian village will be in the 
colony's way. In fact, the colony must have its lands 
and its water. It is only a question of a very little time, 
the driving out of these Saboba families as the Temeculas 
and San Pasquales were driven, — by force, just as truly 
as if at the point of the ba}'onet. 

In one of the beautiful canons opening on this valley is 
the home of Victoriano, an aged chief of the band. He is 
living with his daughter and grandchildren, in a comfort- 
able adobe house at the head of the canon. The vineyard 
and peach orchard which his father planted there, are in 
good bearing. His grandson Jesus, a young man twenty 
j-ears old, in the summer of 1881 ploughed up and planted 
twenty acres of wheat. The boy also studied so faithfully 
in school that year — his first year at school — that he 
learned to read well in the "Fourth Reader;" this in 
spite of his being absent six weeks, in both spring and 
autumn, with the sheep-shearing band. A letter of his, 
written at my request to the Secretary of the Interior in 
behalf of his people, is touching in its simple dignity. 



94 CALIFORNIA AND OREGON. 

Sax Jacinto, Cal., May 29, 1882. 
Mr. Teller. 

Dear Sir, — At the request of my friends, I write you in 
regard to the land of ray people. 

More than one hundred years ago, my great-grandfather, who 
was chief of his tribe, settled with his people in the San Jacinto 
valley. The people have always been peaceful, never caring for 
war, and have welcomed Americans into the valley. 

Some years ago a grant of land was given to the Estudillos 
by the Mexican Government. The first survey did not take in 
any of the land claimed by the Indians; but four years ago a 
new survey was made, taking in all the little farms, the stream 
of water, and the village. Upon this survey the United States 
Government gave a patent. It seems hard for us to be driven 
from our homes that we love as much as other people do theirs ; 
and this danger is at our doors now, for the grant is being di- 
vided and the village and land will be assigned to some of the 
present owners of the grant. 

And now, dear sir, after this statement of facts, I, for my 
people (I ask nothing for myself), appeal to you for help. 

Cannot you find some way to right this great wrong done to a 
quiet and industrious people? 

Hoping that we may have justice done us, I am 
Eespectf ully yours, 

Jose* Jesus Castillo. 



He was at first unwilling to write it, fearing he should 
be supposed to be begging for himself rather than for his 
people. His father was a Mexican ; and he has hoped that 
on that account their family would be exempt from the fate 
of the village when the colony comes into the valley. But 
it is not probable that in a country where water is gold, 
a stream of water such as runs by Victoriano's door will 
be left long in the possession of any Indian family, what- 
ever may be its relations to rich Mexican proprietors in the 
neighborhood. Jesus's mother is a tall, superbly formed 
woman, with a clear skin, hazel nut-brown eyes that thrill 
one with their limpid brightness, a nose straight and 
strong, and a mouth like an Egyptian priestess. She is 
past forty, but she is strikingly handsome still ; and one 
does not wonder at hearing the tragedy of her early 3'outh, 
when, for years, she believed herself the wife of Jesus's 
father, lived in his house as a wife, worked as a wife, and 
bore him his children. Her heart broke when she was 
sent adrift, a sadder than Hagar, with her half-disowned 



MISSION INDIANS IN CALIFORNIA. 95 

offspring. Money and lands did not heal the wound. 
Her face is dark with the sting of it to-day. When 
I asked her to sell me the lace-trimmed pillow-case and 
sheet from her bed, her cheeks flushed at first, and she 
looked away haughtily before replying. But, after a mo- 
ment, she consented. They needed the mone}*. She 
knows well that days of trouble are in store for them. 

Since the writing of this paper news has come that the 
long-expected blow has fallen on this Indian village. The 
colony scheme has been completed ; the valley has been 
divided up ; the land on which the village of Saboba 
stands is now the property of a San Bernardino merchant. 
Any day he chooses, he can eject these Indians as the 
Temecula and the San Pasqual bands were ejected, and 
with far more show of legal right. 

In the vicinity of the San Juan Capistrano Mission are 
living a few families of Indians, some of them the former 
neophytes of the mission. An old woman there, named Car- 
men, is a splendid specimen of the best longevity which her 
race and the California air can produce. We found her in 
bed, where she spends most of her time, — not lying, but 
sitting cross-legged, looking brisk and energetic, and al- 
wa} r s bus}' making lace. Nobody makes finer lace than 
hers. Yet she laughed when we asked if she could see to 
do such fine work without spectacles. 

"Where could I get spectacles?" she said, her e} T es 
twinkling. Then she stretched out her hand for the spec- 
tacles of our old Mexican friend who had asked her this 
question for us ; took them, turned them over curiousry, 
tried to look through them, shook her head, and handed 
them back to him with a shrug and a smile. She was 
twenty years older than he ; but her strong, young eyes 
could not see through his glasses. He recollected her 
well, fifty years before, an active, handsome woman, tak- 
ing care of the sacrist}', washing the priests' laces, mend- 
ing vestments, and filling various offices of trust in the 
mission. A sailor from a French vessel lying in the harbor 
wished to marry her ; but the friars would not give their 
consent, because the man was a drunkard and dishonest. 
Carmen was well disposed to him, and much flattered by 
his love-making. He used to write letters to her, which 
she brought to this Mexican boy to read. It was a droll 



96 CALIFORNIA AND OREGON. 

sight to see her face, as he, now white-haired and look- 
ing fully as old as she, reminded her of that time and 
of those letters, tapping her jocosely on her cheek, and 
sa}ing some things I am sure he did not quite literally 
translate to us. She fairly colored, buried her face in her 
hands for a second, then laughed till she shook, and an- 
swered in voluble Spanish, of which also I suspect we did 
not get a full translation. She was the happiest Indian 
we saw ; indeed, the only one who seemed really gay of 
heart or even content. 

A few rods from the old mission church of San Gabriel, 
in a hut made of bundles of the tule reeds lashed to 
sycamore poles, as the San Gabriel Indians made them a 
hundred } r ears ago, live two old Indian women, Laura and 
Benjamina. Laura is one hundred and two years old, Ben- 
jamina one hundred and seventeen. The record of their 
baptisms is still to be seen in the church books, so there 
can be no dispute as to their age. It seems not at all in- 
credible, however. If I had been told that Benjamina was 
a three-thousand-year-old Nile mummy, resuscitated by 
some mysterious process, I should not have demurred 
much at the tale. The first time I saw them, the two 
were crouching over a fire on the ground, under a sort of 
booth porch, in front of their hovel. Laura was making 
a feint of grinding acorn-meal in a stone bowl ; Benjamina 
was raking the ashes, with her claw-like old fingers, for 
hot coals to start the fire afresh ; her skin was like an 
elephant's, shrivelled, black, hanging in folds and welts on 
her neck and breast and bony arms ; it was not like any- 
thing human ; her shrunken e} T es, bright as beads, peered 
out from under thickets of coarse grizzled gray hair. 
Laura wore a white cloth band around her head, tied on 
w r ith a strip of scarlet flannel ; above that, a tattered black 
shawl, which gave her the look of an aged imp. Old bas- 
kets, old pots, old pans, old stone mortars and pestles, 
broken tiles and bricks, rags, straw, boxes, legless chairs, 
— in short, all conceivable rubbish, — were strewn about 
or piled up in the place, making the weirdest of back- 
grounds for the aged crones' figures. Inside the hut were 
two bedsteads and a few boxes, baskets, and nets ; and 
drying grapes and peppers hung on the walls. A few feet 
away was another hut, only a trifle better than this ; four 



MISSION INDIANS IN CALIFORNIA. 9J 

generations were living in the two. Benjamina's step- 
daughter, aged eighty, was a fine creature. With a white 
band straight around her forehead close to the eyebrows 
and a ga}' plaid handkerchief thrown on above it, falling 
squarely each side of her face, she looked like an old 
Bedouin sheik. 

Our Mexican friend remembered Laura as she was fifty 
years ago. She was then, even at fifty-two, celebrated as 
one of the swiftest runners and best ball-players in all the 
San Gabriel games. She was a singer, too, in the choir. 
Coaxing her up on her feet, patting her shoulders, en- 
treating and caressing her as one would a child, he suc- 
ceeded in persuading her to chant for us the Lord's Prayer 
and part of the litanies, as she had been wont to do it in 
the old days. It was a grotesque and incredible sight. 
The more she stirred and sang and lifted her arms, the less 
alive she looked. We asked the step-daughter if they 
were happy and wished to live. Laughing, she re- 
peated the question to them. " Oh, yes, we wish to live 
forever," they replied. They were greatly terrified, the 
daughter said, when the railway cars first ran through 
San Gabriel. The} 7 thought it was the devil bringing fire 
to burn up the world. Their chief solace is tobacco. 
To beg it, Benjamina will creep about in the village by the 
hour, bent double over her staff, tottering at ever}' step. 
They sit for the most part silent, motionless, on the 
ground ; their knees drawn up, their hands clasped over 
them, their heads sunk on their breasts. In my drives in 
the San Gabriel valley I often saw them sitting thus, as 
if they were dead. The sight had an indescribable fasci- 
nation. It seemed that to be able to penetrate into the 
recesses of their thoughts would be to lay hold upon 
secrets as old as the earth. 

One of the most beautiful appanages of the San Luis 
Rev Mission, in the time of its prosperhty, was the Pala 
valley. It lies about twenty-five miles east of San Luis, 
among broken spurs of the Coast Range, watered by the 
San Luis River, and also by its own little stream, the Pala 
Creek. It was alwaj's a favorite home of the Indians ; 
and at the time of the secularization, over a thousand of 
them used to gather ot the weekly mass in its chapel. 
ISow, on the occasional visits of the San Juan Capistrano 

7 



98 CALIFORNIA AND OREGON. 

priest, to hold service there, the dilapidated little church 
is not half filled, and the numbers are growing smaller 
each year. The buildings are all in decay ; the stone 
steps leading to the belfry have crumbled ; the walls of the 
little graveyard are broken in man}* places, the paling and 
the graves are thrown down. On the day we were there, 
a memorial service for the dead was going on in the chapel ; 
a great square altar was draped with black, decorated with 
silver lace and ghastly funereal emblems ; candles were 
burning ; a row of kneeling black-shawled women were 
holding lighted candles in their hands ; two old Indians 
were chanting a Latin Mass from a tattered missal bound in 
rawhide ; the whole place was full of chilly gloom, in sharp 
contrast to the bright valley outside, with its sunlight and 
silence. This mass was for the soul of an old Indian 
woman named Margarita, sister of Manuelito, a some- 
what famous chief of several bands of the San Luisenos. 
Her home was at the Potrero, — a mountain meadow, 
or pasture, as the word signifies, — about ten miles from 
Pala, high up the mountain-side, and reached by an almost 
impassable road. This farm — or "saeter" it would be 
called in Norway, — was given to Margarita by the friars ; 
and by some exceptional good fortune she had a title 
w r hich, it is said, can be maintained by her heirs. In 
1871, in a revolt of some of Manuelito's bands, Margarita 
was hung up by her wrists till she was near dying, but 
was cut down at the last minute and saved. 

One of her daughters speaks a little English ; and find- 
ing that we had visited Pala solely on account of our 
interest in the Indians, she asked us to come up to the 
Potrero and pass the night. She said timidly that they 
had plenty of beds, and would do all that the}* knew how to 
do to make us comfortable. One might be in many a clear- 
priced hotel less comfortably lodged and served than we 
were by these hospitable Indians in their mud house, 
floored with earth. In my bedroom were three beds, all 
neatly made, with lace-trimmed sheets and pillow-cases 
and patchwork coverlids. One small square window with 
a wooden shutter was the only aperture for air, and there 
was no furniture except one chair and a half-dozen trunks. 
The Indians, like the Norwegian peasants, keep their clothes 
and various properties all neatly packed away in boxes or 



MISSION INDIANS IN CALIFORNIA. 99 

trunks. As I fell asleep, I wondered if in the morning I 
should see Indian heads on the pillows opposite me ; the 
whole place was swarming with men, women, and babies, 
and it seemed impossible for them to spare so many beds ; 
but, no, when I waked, there were the beds still undisturbed ; 
a soft-eyed Indian girl was on her knees rummaging in 
one of the trunks ; seeing me awake, she murmured a few 
words in Indian, which conveyed her apology as well as 
if I had understood them. From the very bottom of the 
trunk she drew out a gilt-edged china mug, darted out of 
the room, and came back bringing it filled with fresh 
water. As she set it in the chair, in which she had 
already put a tin pan of water and a clean coarse towel, 
she smiled, and made a sign that it was for my teeth. 
There was a thoughtfulness and delicacy in the attention 
which lifted it far beyond the level of its literal value. 
The gilt-edged mug was her most precious possession ; 
and, in remembering water for the teeth, she had pro- 
vided me with the last superfluity in the way of white 
man's comfort of which she could think. 

The food which they gave us was a surprise ; it was far 
better than we had found the night before in the house of 
an Austrian colonel's son, at Pala. Chicken, deliciously 
cooked, with rice and chile ; soda-biscuits delicately made ; 
good milk and butter, all laid in orderly fashion, with a 
clean table-cloth, and clean, white stone china. When I 
said to our hostess that I regretted veiy much that they 
had given up their beds in my room, that the}' ought not 
to have done it, she answered me with a wave of her hand 
that " it was nothing ; they hoped I had slept well ; that 
they had plenty of other beds." The hospitable lie did 
not deceive me, for by examination I had convinced my- 
self that the greater part of the family must have slept on 
the bare earth in the kitchen. Tlfty would not have taken 
pa}* for our lodging, except that they had just been forced 
to give so much for the mass for Margarita's soul, and it 
had been hard for them to raise the money. Twelve dol- 
lars the priest had charged for the mass ; and in addition 
they had to pay for the candles, silver lace, black cloth, 
etc., nearly as much more. They had earnestly desired to 
have the mass said at the Potrero, but the priest would 
not come up there for less than twenty dollars, and that, 



100 CALIFORNIA AND OREGON. 

Antonia saicl, with a sigh, they could not possibly pay. 
We left at six o'clock in the morning ; Margarita's hus- 
band, the " capitan," riding off' with us to see us safe on 
our way. When we had passed the worst gullies and 
boulders, he whirled his horse, lifted his ragged old som- 
brero with the grace of a cavalier, smiled, wished us good- 
day and good luck, and was out of sight in a second, his 
little wild pony galloping up the rough trail as if it were 
as smooth as a race-course. 

Between the Potrero and Pala are two Indian villages, 
the Eincon and Pauma. The Rincon is at the head of 
the valley, snugged up against the mountains, as its name 
signifies, in a " corner." Here were fences, irrigating 
ditches, fields of barley, wheat, hay, and peas ; a little 
herd of horses and cows grazing, and several flocks 
of sheep. The men were all awa} r sheep-shearing; the 
women were at work in the fields, some hoeing, some 
clearing out the irrigating ditches, and all the old women 
plaiting baskets. These Rincon Indians, we were told, had 
refused a school offered them b} 7 the Government ; they 
said they would accept nothing at the hands of the Gov- 
ernment until it gave them a title to their lands. 

The most picturesque of all the Mission Indians' hiding- 
places which we saw was that on the Carmel River, a few 
miles from the San Carlos Mission. Except by help of a 
guide it cannot be found. A faint trail turning off from 
the road in the river-bottom leads down to the river's edge. 
You follow it into the river and across, supposing it a ford. 
On the opposite bank there is no trail, no sign of one. 
Whether it is that the Indians purposely always go ashore 
at different points of the bank, so as to leave no trail ; or 
whether the}' so seldom go out, except on foot, that the 
trail has faded awa}~, I do not know. But certainly, if we 
had had no guide, we should have turned back, sure we 
were wrong. A few rods up from the river-bank, a stealth}' 
narrow footpath appeared ; through willow copses, sunk 
in meadow grasses, across shingly bits of alder- walled 
beach it creeps, till it comes out in a lovely spot, — half 
basin, half rocky knoll, — where, tucked away in nooks 
and hollows, are the little Indian houses, eight or ten 
of them, some of adobe, some of the tule-reeds ; small 
patches of corn, barley, potatoes, and hay ; and each little 



MISSION INDIANS IN CALIFORNIA. 101 

front yard fenced in by palings, with roses, sweet-peas, 
poppies, and mignonette growing inside. In the first 
house we reached, a woman was living alone. She was so 
alarmed at the sight of us that she shook. There could 
not be a more pitiful comment on the state of perpetual 
distrust and alarm in which the poor creatures live, than 
this woman's face and behavior. We tried in vain to re- 
assure her ; we bought all the lace she had to sell, chatted 
with her about it, and asked her to show us how it was 
made. Even then she was so terrified that although she 
willingly took down her lace-frame to sewa few stitches for 
us to see, her hands still trembled. In another house we 
found an old woman evidently past eight}', without glasses 
working button-holes in fine thread. Her daughter-in- 
law — a beautiful half-breed, with a still more beautiful 
bab}' in her arms — asked the old woman, for us, how old 
she was. She laughed merrily at the silly question. " She 
never thought about it," she said ; "it was written down 
once in a book at the Mission, but the book was lost." 

There was not a man in the village. The}' were all 
away at work, farming or fishing. This little handful of 
people are living on land to which they have no shadow of 
title, and from which they may be driven any da} r , — these 
Carmel Mission lands having been rented out, by their 
present owner, in great dairy farms. The parish priest 
of Monte re} T told me much of the pitiable condition of 
these remnants of the San Carlos Indians. He can do 
little or nothing for them, though their condition makes 
his heart ache daily. In that half- foreign English which 
is always so much more eloquent a language than the 
English-speaking peoples use, he said: "They have their 
homes there only by the patience of the thief; it may be 
that the patience do not last to-morrow." The phrase is 
worth preserving : it embodies so much histor}^, — history 
of two races. 

In Mr. Wilson's report are many eloquent and strong 
paragraphs, bearing on the question of the Indians' right 
to the lands they had under cultivation at the time of the 
secularization. He says : — 

"It is not natural rights I speak of, nor merely possessory 
rights, but rights acquired and contracts made, — acquired and 



102 CALIFORNIA AND OREGON. 

made when the laws of the Indies had force here, and never as- 
sailed by any laws or executive acts since, till 1834 and 184(j; 
and impregnable to these. . . . No past maladministration of 
laws can be suffered to destroy their true intent, while the vic- 
tims of the maladministration live to complain, and the rewards 
of wrong have not been consumed." 

Of Mr. Wilsons report in 1852, of Mr. Ames's report 
in 1873, and of the various other reports called for b}- the 
Government from time to time, nothing came, except the 
occasional setting off of reservations by executive orders, 
which, if the lands reserved were worth anything, were 
speedily revoked at the bidding of California politicians. 
There are still some reservations left, chiefly of desert and 
mountainous lands, which nobody wants, and on which 
the Indians could not live. 

The last report made to the Indian Bureau hy their pres- 
ent agent closes in the following words : — 

"The necessity of providing suitable lands for them in the 
form of one or more reservations has been pressed on th& atten- 
tion of the Department in my former reports ; and I now, for the 
third and perhaps the last time, emphasize that necessity by say- 
ing that whether Government will immediately heed the pleas 
that have been made in behalf of these people or not, it must 
sooner or later deal with this question in a practical way, or 
else see a population of over three thousand Indians become 
homeless wanderers in a desert region." 

I have shown a few glimpses of the homes, of the in- 
dustry, the patience, the long-suffering of the people who 
are in this immediate danger of being driven out from 
their last footholds of refuge, "homeless wanderers in 
a desert." 

If the United States Government does not take steps 
to avert this danger, to give them lands and protect them 
in their rights, the chapter of the history of the Mission 
Indians will be the blackest one in the black record of our 
dealings with the Indian race. 

It must be done speedily if at all, for there is only a 
small remnant left to be saved. These are in their present 
homes " only on the patience of the thief; and it may be 
that the patience do not last to-morrow." 



ECHOES IN THE CITY OF THE ANGELS. 

The tale of the founding of the city of Los Angeles is a 
tale for verse rather than for prose. It reads like a page 
out of some new " Earthly Paradise," and would fit well 
into song such as William Morris has sung. 

It is only a hundred years old, however, and that is not 
time enough for such song to simmer. It will come later, 
with the perfume of century-long summers added to its 
flavor. Summers century-long ? One might say a stronger 
thing than that of them, seeing that their blossoming never 
stops, year in nor year out, and will endure as long as the 
visible frame of the earth. 

The twelve devout Spanish soldiers who founded the 
city named it at their leisure with a long name, musical as 
a chime of bells. It answered well enough, no doubt, for 
the first fifty years of the city's life, during which not 
a municipal record of any sort or kind was written, — 
" Nuestra Senora Reina de los Angeles," "Our Lad}* the 
Queen of the Angels ; " and her portrait made a goodry 
companion flag, unfurled always by the side of the flag of 
Spain. 

There is a legend, that sounds older than it is, of the 
ceremonies with which the soldiers took possession of their 
new home. They were no longer young. The}' had 
fought for Spain in many parts of the Old World, and fol- 
lowed her uncertain fortunes to the New. Ten j*ears some 
of them had been faithfully serving Church and King in 
sight of these fair lands, for which they hankered, and with 
reason. 

In those da}'s the soft, rolling, treeless hills and valleys, 
between which the Los Angeles River now takes its shilly- 



104 CALIFORNIA AND OREGON. 

shallying course seaward, were forest slopes and meadows, 
with lakes great and small. This abundance of trees, 
with shining waters playing among them, added to the 
limitless bloom of the plains and the splendor of the 
snow- topped mountains, must have made the whole region 
indeed a paradise. 

Navarro, Villavicencia, Rodriguez, Quintero, Moreno, 
Lara, Banegas, Rosas, and Canero, these were their 
names : happy soldiers all, honored of their king, and dis- 
charged with so royal a gift of lands thus fair. 

Looking out across the Los Angeles hills and meadows 
to-day, one easily lives over again the joy they must have 
felt. Twenty-three }'oung children there were in the band, 
poor little waifs of camp and march. What a ' k braw 
flitting " was it for them, away from the drum-beat forever 
into the shelter of their own sunn}' home ! The legend 
says not a word of the mothers, except that there were 
eleven of them, and in the procession thej T walked with 
their children behind the men. Doubtless they rejoiced 
the most. 

The Fathers from the San Gabriel Mission were there, 
with many Indian neophj'tes, and Don Felipe, the military 
governor, with his show} 7 guard of soldiers. 

The priests and neophytes chanted. The Cross was set 
up, the flag of Spain and the banner of Our Lady the 
Queen of the Angels unfurled, and the new town marked 
out around a square, a little to the north of the present 
plaza of Los Angeles. ^ 

If communities, as well as individuals, are happy when 
history finds nothing to record of them, the city of the 
Queen of the Angels must have been a happ} T spot during 
the first fifty 3^ears of its life ; for not a written record of 
the period remains, not even a record of grants of land. 
The kind of grant that these wortlry Spanish soldiers and 
their sons contented themselves with, however, hardly de- 
served recording, — in fact, was not a grant at all, since 
its continuance depended entirely on the care a man took 
of his house and the improvement he put on his land. If 
he left his house unoccupied, or let it fall out of repair, if 
he left a field uncultivated for two 3 T ears, any neighbor 
who saw fit might denounce him, and by so doing ac- 
quire a right to the property. This sounds incredible, 



ECHOES IN THE CITY OF THE ANGELS. 105 

but all the historical accounts of the time agree on the 
point. They say, — 

11 The granting authorities could, and were by law required, 
upon a proper showing of the abandonment, to grant the prop- 
erty to the informant, who then acquired the same and no better 
rights than those possessed by his predecessor." 

This was a premium indeed on staying at home and 
minding one's business, — a premium which amounted to 
coercion. One would think that there must have been left 
from those days teeming records of alienated estates, 
shifted tenures, and angry feuds between neighbor and 
neighbor. But no evidence remains of such strifes. Life 
was too simple, and the people were too ignorant. 

Their houses were little more than hovels, built of mud, 
eight feet high, with flat roofs made of reeds and asphal- ' 
turn. Their fields, with slight cultivation, produced all 
they needed ; and if anything lacked, the rich vineyards, 
wheat- fields, and orchards of the San Gabriel Mission lay 
only twelve miles awa3 T . These vineyards, orchards, and 
granaries, so near at hand, must have been sore temptation 
to idleness. Each head of a family had been presented, 
by the paternal Spanish king, with "two oxen, two mules, 
two mares, two sheep, two goats, two cows, one calf, an 
ass, and one hoe." For these they were to pay in such 
small instalments as they were able to spare out of their 
pay and rations, which were still continued by the gener- 
ous king. 

In a climate in which flowers blossom winter and sum- 
mer alike, man may bask in sun all the j<ear round if he 
chooses. Why, then, should those happy Spanish soldiers 
work? Even the king had thought it unnecessary, it 
seems, to give them any implements of labor except " one 
hoe." What could a family do, in the way of work, with 
" one hoe"? Evidently, they did not work, neither they, 
nor their sons, nor their sons' sons after them ; for, half^ 
a century later, they were still living a life of almost in- 
credible ignorance, redeemed only by its simplicity and 
childlike adherence to the old religious observances. 

Many of those were beautiful. As late as 1830 it was 
the custom throughout the town, in all the families of the 



106 CALIFORNIA AND OREGON. 

early settlers, for the oldest member of the family — often- 
est it was a grandfather or grandmother — to rise every 
morning at the rising of the morning star, and at once to 
strike up a hymn. At the first note every person in the 
house would rise, or sit up in bed and join in the song. 
From house to house, street to street, the singing spread ; 
and the volume of musical sound swelled, until it was as 
if the whole town sang. 

The hymns were usually invocations to the Virgin, to 
Jesus, or to some saint. The opening line of many of 
them was, — 

"Rejoice, O Mother of God." 

A manuscript copy of one of these old morning songs I 
have seen, and had the good fortune to win a literal trans- 
lation of part of it, in the soft, Spanish-voiced, broken 
English, so pleasant to hear. The first stanza is the cho- 
rus, and w r as repeated after each of the others : — 

"Come, sinners, 

Come, and we will sing 
Tender hymns 
To our refuge. 

" Singers at dawn, 

From the heavens above, 
People all regions ; 
Gladly we too sing. 

" Singing harmoniously, 
Saying to Mary, 
' beautiful Queen, 
Princess of Heaven ! 

" ' Your beautiful head 
Crowned we see ; 
The stars are adorning 
Your beautiful hair ; 

" ' Your eyebrows are arched, 
Your forehead serene ; 
Your face turned always 
Looks toward God ; 

" ' Your eyes' radiance 
Is like beautiful stars ; 
Like a white dove, 

You are true to your spouse/ " 



ECHOES IN THE CITY OF THE ANGELS. 107 

Each of these stanzas was sung first alone b} r the aged 
leader of the family choir. Then the rest repeated it ; 
then all joined in the chorus. 

It is said that there are still to be found, in lonely coun- 
try regions in California, Mexican homes in which these 
sweet and holy " songs before sunrise " are sung. 

Looking forward to death, the greatest anxiety of these 
simple souls was to provide themselves with a priest's cast- 
off robe to be buried in. These were begged or bought as 
the greatest of treasures ; kept in sight, or always at hand, 
to remind them of approaching death. When their last 
hour drew near, this robe was flung over their breasts, 
and they died happy, their stiffening fingers grasping its 
folds. The dead bocly was wrapped in it, and laid on the 
mud floor of the house, a stone being placed under the 
head to raise it a few inches. Thus the body must lie till 
the time of burial. Around it, day and night, squatted, 
praying and singing, friends who wished not only to show 
their affection for the deceased, but to win indulgences for 
themselves ; every prayer said thus, by the side of a 
corpse, having a special and specified value. 

A strange demarkation between the sexes was enforced 
in these ceremonies. If it were a woman who la} 7 dead, 
only women might kneel and pray and watch with her 
bod}' ; if a man, the circle of watchers must be exclusively 
of men. 

A rough box, of boards nailed together, was the coffin. 
The bod}', rolled in the old robe whose virtues had so com- 
forted its last conscious moments, was carried to the grave 
on a board, in the centre of a procession of friends chant- 
ing and singing. Not until the last moment was it laid in 
the box. 

The first attempts to introduce more civilized forms of 
burial met with opposition, and it was only by slow degrees 
that changes were wrought. A Frenchman, who had come 
from France to Los Angeles, by way of the Sandwich Isl- 
ands, bringing a store of sacred ornaments and trinkets, 
and had grown rich by sale of them to the devout, owned 
a spring wagon, the only one in the country. By dint of 
entreaty, the people were finally prevailed upon to allow 
their dead to be carried in this wagon to the burial-place. 
For a long time, however, they refused to have horses put 



108 CALIFORNIA AND OREGON. 

to the wagon, but drew it by hand all the way ; women 
drawing women, and men drawing men, with the same 
scrupulous partition of the sexes as in the earlier ceremo- 
nies. The picture must have been a strange one, and not 
without pathos, — the wagon, wound and draped with 
black and white, drawn up and down the steep hills by 
the band of silent mourners. 

The next innovation was the introduction of stately 
catafalques for the dead to repose on, either in house or 
church, during the interval between their death and burial. 
There had been brought into the town a few old-fashioned, 
high-post, canopied bedsteads, and from these the first 
catafalques were made. Gilded, decorated with gold and 
silver lace, and hung with white and black draperies, they 
made a by no means insignificant show, which doubtless 
went far to reconcile people's minds to the new methods. 

In 1838 there was a memorable funeral of a woman over 
a hundred years old. Fourteen old women watched with 
her bocty, which la}~ stretched on the floor, in the ancient 
fashion, with only a stone beneath the head. The young- 
est of these watchers was eighty-five. One of them, 
Tomasa Camera by name, was herself over a hundred 
years old. Tomasa was infirm of foot ; so they propped 
her with pillows in a little cart, and drew her to the house 
that she might not miss of the occasion. All night long, 
the fourteen squatted or sat on rawhides spread on the 
floor, and sang and pra}'ed and smoked : as fine a wake 
as was ever seen. The}' smoked cigarettes, which they 
rolled on the spot, out of corn-husks slit fine for the pur- 
pose, there being at that clay in Los Angeles no paper fit 
for cigarettes. 

£>utside this body-guard of aged women knelt a circle of 
friends and relatives, also chanting, praying, and smoking. 
In this outer circle anj* one might come and go at pleas- 
ure ; but into the inner ring of the watching none must 
come, and none must go out of it till the night was spent. 

With the beginning of the prosperity of the City of the 
Angels, came the end of its primeval peace. Spanish 
viceroj's, Mexican alcaldes and governors, United States 
commanders, naval and military, followed on each other's 
heels, with or without frays, ruling California through a 
succession of tumultuous years. Greedy traders from all 



ECHOES IN THE CITY OF THE ANGELS. 109 

parts of the world added their rivalries and interventions 
to the civil and militarj^ disputation. In the general an- 
archy and confusion, the peaceful and peace-loving Cath- 
olic Fathers were robbed of their lands, their converts were 
scattered, their industries broken up. Nowhere were these 
uncomfortable years more uncomfortable than in Los An- 
geles. Kevolts, occupations, surrenders, retakings, and 
resurrenders kept the little town in perpetual ferment. 
Disorders were the order of the day and of the night, in 
small matters as well as in great. 

The Californian fought as impetuousl} 7 for his old way 
of dancing as for his political allegiance. There are comi- 
cal traditions of the men's determination never to wear 
long trousers to dances ; nor to permit dances to be held 
in houses or halls, it having been the practice always ±0 
give them in outdoor booths or bowers, with lattice-work 
walls of sycamore poles lashed together by thongs of 
rawhide. 

Outside these booths the men sat on their horses looking 
in at the dancing, which was chiefly done hy the women. 
An old man standing in the centre of the enclosure directed 
the dances. Stopping in front of the girl whom he wished 
to have join the set, he clapped his hands. She then rose 
and took her place on the floor ; if she could not dance, or 
wished to decline, she made a low bow and resumed her 
seat. 

To look in on all this was great sport. Sometimes, un- 
able to resist the spell, a man would fling himself off his 
horse, clash into the enclosure, seize a girl 03- the waist, 
whirl around with her through one dance, then out again 
and into the saddle, where he sat, proudly aware of his 
vantage. The decorations of masculine attire at this time 
were such as to make riding a fine show. Around the 
crown of the broad-brimmed sombrero was twisted a coil 
of gold or silver cord ; over the shoulders was flung, with 
ostentatious carelessness, a short cloak of velvet or bro- 
cade; the waistcoats were embroidered in gold, silver, or 
gaj- colors ; so also were the knee-breeches, leggings, and 
stockings. Long silken garters, with ornamented tassels 
at the ends, were wound round and round to hold the 
stockings in place. Even the cumbrous wooden stirrups 
were carved in elaborate designs. No wonder that men 



110 CALIFORNIA AND OREGON. 

accustomed to such braveries as these saw ignominy in the 
plain American trousers. 

They seem to have been a variety of Centaur, these 
early Californian men. They were seldom off their horses 
except to eat and sleep. They mounted, with jingling sil- 
ver spur and glittering bridle, for the shortest distances, 
even to cross a plaza. They paid long visits on horseback, 
without dismounting. Clattering up to the window or 
door-sill, halting, throwing one knee over the crupper, the 
reins lying loose, they sat at ease, far more at ease than 
in a house. Only at church, where the separation was in- 
evitable, would they be parted from their horses. They 
turned the near neighborhood of a church on Sunday into 
a sort of picket-ground, or horse-trainers' yard, full of 
horse-posts and horses ; and the scene was far more like a 
horse-fair than like an occasion of holy observance. There 
seems to have been a curious mixture of reverence and 
irreverence in their natures. They confessed sins and un- 
derwent penances with the simplicity of children ; but 
when, in 1821, the Church issued an edict against that 
" escandalosisima " dance, the waltz, declaring that who- 
ever dared to dance it should be excommunicated, the 
merry sinners waltzed on only the harder and faster, and 
laughed in their priests' faces. And when the advocates 
of decorum, good order, and indoor dancing gave their 
first ball in a public hall in Los Angeles, the same merry 
outdoor party broke eveiy window and door in the build- 
ing, and put a stop to the festivit} T . They persisted in 
taking this same summary vengeance on occasion after 
occasion, until, finally, any person wishing to give a ball 
in his own house was forced to surround the house by a 
cordon of police to protect it. 

The City of the Angels is a prosperous chVy now. It has 
business thoroughfares, blocks of fine stone buildings, 
hotels, shops, banks, and is growing daily. Its outlying 
regions are a great circuit of gardens, orchards, vine}'ards, 
and corn-fields, and its suburbs are fast filling up with 
houses of a showy though cheap architecture. But it has 
not yet shaken off its past. A certain indefinable, deli- 
cious aroma from the old, ignorant, picturesque times lin- 
gers still, not only in b}'ways and corners, but in the very 
centres of its newest activities. 



ECHOES IN THE CITY OF THE ANGELS. Ill 

Mexican women, their heads wrapped in black shawls, 
and their bright eyes peering out between the close- 
gathered folds, glide about eveiy where ; the soft Spanish 
speech is continually heard ; long-robed priests hurry to 
and fro ; and at each dawn ancient, jangling bells from 
the Church of the Lacty of the Angels ring out the night 
and in the day. Venders of strange commodities drive in 
stranger vehicles up and down the streets : antiquated 
carts piled high with oranges, their golden opulence con- 
trasting weirdly with the shabbiness of their surroundings 
and the evident poverty of their owner ; close following on 
the gold of one of these, one has sometimes the luck to see 
another cart, still more antiquated and ricketj T , piled high 
with something — he cannot imagine what — terra-cotta 
red in grotesque shapes ; it is fuel, — the same sort which 
Villavicencia, Quintero, and the rest probably burned, 
when they burned an}', a hundred years ago. It is the 
roots and root-shoots of manzanita and other shrubs. The 
colors are superb, — terra-cotta reds, shading up to flesh 
pink, and down to dark mahogany; but the forms are 
grotesque beyond comparison : twists, querls, contortions, 
a boxful of them is an uncomfortable presence in one's 
room, and putting them on the fire is like cremating the 
vertebrae and double teeth of colossal monsters of the 
Pterodactyl period. 

The present plaza of the city is near the original plaza 
marked out at the time of the first settlement ; the low 
adobe house of one of the early governors stands yet on 
its east side, and is still a habitable building. 

The plaza is a dustj T and dismal little place, with a par- 
simonious fountain in the centre, surrounded by spokes of 
thin turf, and walled at its outer circumference by a row 
of tall Monterey cypresses, shorn and clipped into the 
shape of huge croquettes or brad-awls standing broad end 
down. At all hours of the daj 7 idle boys and still idler 
men are to be seen basking on the fountain's stone rim, or 
lying, face down, heels in air, in the triangles of shade 
made by the cypress croquettes. There is in Los Angeles 
much of this ancient and ingenious style of shearing and 
compressing foliage into unnatural and distorted shapes. 
It comes, no doubt, of lingering reverence for the tradi- 
tions of what was thought beautiful in Spain centuries 



112 CALIFORNIA AND OREGON 

ago ; and it gives to the town a certain quaint and for- 
eign look, in admirable keeping with its irregular levels, 
zigzag, toppling precipices, and houses in tiers one above 
another. 

One comes sometimes abruptly on a picture which seems 
bewilderingly un-American, of a precipice wall covered 
with bird-cage cottages, the little, paling-walled yard of 
one jutting out in a line with the chimney-tops of the next 
one below, and so on down to the street at the base of the 
hill. Wooden staircases and bits of terrace link and loop 
the odd little perches together ; bright green pepper-trees, 
sometimes tall enough to shade two or three tiers of roofs, 
give a graceful plumed draping at the sides, and some of 
the steep fronts are covered with bloom, in solid curtains, 
of geranium, sweet alyssum, heliotrope, and ivy. These 
terraced e3Ties are not the homes of the rich : the houses 
are lilliputian in size, and of cheap quality ; but they do 
more for the picturesqueness of the city than all the large, 
fine, and costly houses put together. 

Moreover, they are the only houses that command the 
situation, possess distance and a horizon. From some of 
these little ten-b}'-twelve flower-beds of homes is a stretch 
of view which makes each hour of the day a succession of 
changing splendors, — the snowy peaks of San Bernardino 
and San Jacinto in the east and south ; to the west, vast 
open country, billowy green with vineyard and orchard ; 
bej-ond this, in clear weather, shining glints and threads 
of ocean, and again beyond, in the farthest outing, hill- 
crowned islands, mist} r blue against the sky. No one 
knows Los Angeles who does not climb to these sunny 
outlying heights, and roam and linger on them many a 
da}'. Nor, even thus lingering, will any one ever know 
more of Los Angeles than its lovely outward semblances 
and mysterious suggestions, unless he have the good for- 
tune to win past the barrier of proud, sensitive, tender 
reserve, behind which is hid the life of the few remaining 
survivors of the old Spanish and Mexican regime. 

Once past this, he gets glimpses of the same stintless 
hospitality and immeasurable courtes} 1 - which gave to the 
old Franciscan establishments a world-wide fame, and to 
the societ}^ whose tone and customs the}' created an at- 
mosphere of simple-hearted joyousness and generosity 



ECHOES IN THE CITY OF THE ANGELS. 113 

never known by any other communities on the American 
continent. 

In houses whose doors seldom open to English-speaking 
people, there are rooms full of relics of that fast-vanishing 
past. Strongholds also of a religious faith, almost as ob- 
solete, in its sort and degree, as are the garments of the 
aged creatures who are peacefully resting their last days 
on its support. 

In one of these houses, in a poverty-stricken but gayly 
decorated little bedroom, hangs a small oil-painting, a 
portrait of Saint Francis de Paula. It was brought from 
Mexico, fifty-five years ago, \>y the woman who still owns 
it, and has knelt before it and pra}*ed to it every day 
of the fifty-five years. Below it is a small altar covered 
with flowers, candlesticks, vases, and innumerable knick- 
knacks. A long string under the picture is hung full of 
tin}' gold and silver votive offerings from persons who have 
been miraculously cured in answer to pray^ers made to 
the saint. Legs, arms, hands, eyes, hearts, heads, babies, 
dogs, horses, — no organ, no creature, that could suffer, 
is unrepresented. The old woman has at her tongue's 
end the tale of each one of these miracles. She is herself 
a sad cripple ; her feet swollen by inflammation, which for 
many years has given her incessant torture and made it 
impossible for her to walk, except with tottering steps, 
from room to room, by help of a staff. This, she says, is 
the only thing her saint has not cured. It is her " cross," 
her " mortification of the flesh," 4t to take her to heaven." 
"He knows best." As she speaks, her eyes perpetually 
seek the picture, resting on it with a look of ineffable ado- 
ration. She has seen tears roll down its cheeks more than 
once, she saj's ; and it often smiles on her when they are 
alone. When strangers enter the room she can always 
tell, by its expression, whether the saint is or is not 
pleased with them, and whether their prayers will be 
granted. She was good enough to remark that he was 
very glad to see us ; she was sure of it b} T the smile in his 
eye. He had wrought many beautiful miracles for her. 
Nothing was too trivial for his sympathy and help. Once 
when she had broken a vase in which she had been in 
the habit of keeping flowers on the altar, she took the 
pieces in her hands, and standing before him, said: 

8 



114 CALIFORNIA AND OREGON. 

" You know 3 T ou will miss this vase. I alwa} T s put 3'our 
flowers in it, and I am too poor to bii3 T another. Now, do 
mend this for me. I have nobody but 3011 to help me." 
And the vase grew together again whole while she was 
speaking. In the same wa3 T he mended for her a high 
glass flower-case which stood on the altar. 

Thus she jabbered away breathlessly in Spanish, almost 
too fast to be followed. Sitting in a high chair, her poor 
distorted feet propped on a cushion, a black silk handker- 
chief wound like a turban around her head, a plaid ribosa 
across her shoulders, contrasting sharply with her shabby 
wine-colored gown, her hands clasped around a yellow 
staff, on which she leaned as she bent forward in her 
eager speaking, she made a study for an artist. 

She was very beautiful in her 3 T outh, she said ; her 
cheeks so red that people thought the3 T were painted ; and 
she was so strong that she was never tired ; and when, in 
the first 3*ear of her widowhood, a stranger came to her 
"with a letter of recommendation" to be her second hus- 
band, and before she had time to speak had fallen on his 
knees at her feet, she seized him by the throat, and top- 
pling him backward, pinned him against the wall till he 
was black in the face. And her sister came running up 
in terror, imploring her not to kill him. But all that 
strength is gone now, she says sadly ; her memoiy also. 
Each da3', as soon as she has finished her payers, she has 
to put away- her rosary in a special place, or else she for- 
gets that the pra3'ers have been said. Many priests have 
desired to possess her precious miracle-working saint ; but 
never till she dies will it leave her bedroom. Not a week 
passes without some one's arriving to implore its aid. 
Sometimes the deeply distressed come on their knees all 
the way from the gate before the house, up the steps, 
through the hall, and into her bedroom. Such occasions 
as these are to her full of solemn joy, and no doubt, also, 
of a secret exultation whose kinship to pride she does not 
suspect. 

In another unpretending little adobe house, not far from 
this Saint Francis shrine, lives the granddaughter of Mo- 
reno, one of the twelve Spanish soldiers who founded the 
cit3' . She speaks no word of English ; and her soft black 
eyes are timid, though she is the widow of a general, and 



ECHOES IN TEE CITY OF THE ANGELS. 115 

in the stormy days of the City of the Angels, passed 
through many a crisis of peril and adventure. Her house 
is full of curious relics, which she shows with a gentle, 
half-amused courtesy. It is not eas\* for her to believe 
that any American can feel real reverence for the symbols, 
tokens, and relics of the life and customs which his people 
destroyed. In her mind Americans remain to-da}' as com- 
pletely foreigners as the}' were when her husband girded 
on his sword and went out to fight them, forty 3-ears ago. 
Many of her relics have been rescued at one time or an- 
other from plunderers of the missions. She has an old 
bronze kettle which once held holy water at San Fernando ; 
an incense cup and spoon, and massive silver candlesticks ; 
cartridge-boxes of leather, with Spain's ancient seal 
stamped on them ; a huge copper caldron and scales 
from San Gabriel ; a bunch of ke}*s of hammered iron, 
locks, scissors, reaping-hooks, shovels, carding-brushes 
for wool and for flax : all made by the Indian workmen in 
the missions. There w 7 as also one old lock, in which the 
key was rusted fast and immovable, which seemed to me 
fuller of suggestion than anything else there of the sealed 
and ended past to which it had belonged ; and a curious 
little iron cannon, in shape like an ale-mug, about eight 
inches high, with a hole in the side and in the top, to be used 
by setting it on the ground and laying a trail of powder to 
the opening in the side. This gave the Indians great de- 
light. It was fired at the times of church festivals, and in 
seasons of drought to bring rain. Another curious instru- 
ment of racket was the matrarca, a strip of board with 
two small swinging iron handles so set in it that, in swing- 
ing back and forth, they hit iron plates. In the time of 
Lent, when all rino-in^ of bells was forbidden, these were 
rattled to call the Indians to church. The noise one of 
them can make when vigorously shaken is astonishing. In 
crumpled bundles, their stiffened meshes opening out re- 
luctantly, were two curious rush-woven nets which had 
been used by Indian women fifty years ago in carrying 
burdens. Similar nets, made of twine, are used by them 
still. Fastened to a leather strap or band passing around 
the forehead, they hang down behind far below the waist, 
and when filled out to their utmost holding capacit}' are so 
heav} 7 that the poor creatures bend nearly double beneath 



116 CALIFORNIA AND OREGON. 

them. But the women stand as uncomplainingly as camels 
while weight after weight is piled in ; then slipping the 
band over their heads, the}' adjust the huge burden and 
set off at a trot. 

"This is the squaw's horse," said an Indian woman in 
the San Jacinto valle}- one da}-, tapping her forehead 
and laughing good-naturedly, when the shopkeeper re- 
monstrated with her husband, who was heaping article 
after article, and finally a large sack of flour, on her 
shoulders ; " squaw's horse very strong." 

The original site of the San Gabriel Mission was a few 
miles to the east of the City of the Angels. Its lands are 
now divided into ranches and coloiry settlements, only a 
few acres remaining in the possession of the Church. But 
the old chapel is still standing in a fair state of preserva- 
tion, used for the daily services of the San Gabriel parish ; 
and there are in its near neighborhood a few crumbling 
adobe hovels left, the only remains of the once splendid 
and opulent mission. In one of these lives a Mexican 
woman, eight} T -two years old, who for more than half a 
century has washed and mended the priests' laces, repaired 
the robes, and remodelled the vestments of San Gabriel. 
She is worth crossing the continent to see : all white from 
head to foot, as if bleached by some strange gramarye ; 
white hair, white skin, blue eyes faded nearly to white ; 
white cotton clothes, ragged and not over clean, yet not a 
trace of color in them ; a white linen handkerchief, deli- 
cately embroidered by herself, always tied loosely around 
her throat. She sits on a low box, leaning against the 
wall, w r ith three white pillows at her back, her feet on a 
cushion on the ground ; in front of her, another low box, 
on this a lace-maker's pillow, with knotted fringe stretched 
on it; at her left hand a battered copper caldron, hold- 
ing hot coals to warm her fingers and to light her cigar- 
ettes. A match she will never use ; and she has seldom 
been without a cigarette in her mouth since she was six 
years old. On her right hand is a chest filled with her 
treasures, — rags of damask, silk, velvet, lace, muslin, 
ribbon, artificial flowers, flosses, worsteds, silks on spools ; 
here she sits, da} T in, day out, making cotton fringes and, 
out of shreds of silk, tiny embroidered scapulars, which 
she sells to all devout and charitable people of the region. 



ECHOES IN THE CITY OF THE ANGELS. 117 

She also teaches the children of the parish to read and to 
pray. The walls of her hovel are papered with tattered 
pictures, including many gay-colored ones, taken oil', tin 
cans, their flaunting signs reading drolly, — "Perfection 
Press Mackerel, Boston, Mass.," "Charm Baking Pow- 
der," and " Knowlton's Inks," alternating with "Toledo 
Blades " and clipper-ship advertisements. She finds these 
of great use in both teaching and amusing the children. 
The ceiling, of canvas, black with smoke, and festooned 
with cobwebs, sags down in folds, and shows many a rent. 
When it rains, her poor little place must be drenched in 
spots. One end of the room is curtained off with calico ; 
this is her bedchamber. At the other end is a raised dais, 
on which stands an altar, holding a small statuette of the 
Infant Jesus. It is a copy in wood of the famous Little 
Jesus of Atoches in Mexico, which is worshipped by all the 
people in that region. It has been her constant companion 
and protector for fifty years. Over the altar is a canopy 
of calico, decorated with paper flowers, whirligigs, doves, 
and little gourds ; with votive offerings, also, of gold or 
silver, from grateful people helped or cured by the Little 
Jesus. On the statuette's head is a tiny hat of real gold, 
and a real gold sceptre in the little hand ; the breast of its 
fine white linen cambric gown is pinned by a gold pin. It 
has a wardrobe with as many changes as an actor. She 
keeps these carefully hid away in a small camphor-wood 
trunk, but she brought them all out to show to us. 

Two of her barefooted, ragged little pupils scampered 
in as she was unfolding these gay doll's clothes. They 
crowded close around her knees and looked on, with open- 
mouthed awe and admiration : a purple velvet cape with 
white fringe for feast days ; capes of satin, of brocade ; 
a dozen shirts of finest linen, embroidered or trimmed 
with lace ; a tiny plume not more than an inch long, of 
gold exquisitely carved, — this was her chief treasure. 
It looked beautiful in his hat, she said, but it was 
too valuable to wear often. Hid away here among the 
image's best clothes were more of the gold votive offer- 
ings it had received : one a head cut out of solid gold ; 
several rosaries of carved beads, silver and gold. Spite 
of her apparently unbounded faith in the Little Jesus' 
power to protect her and himself, the old woman thought 



118 CALIFORNIA AND OREGON. 

it wiser to keep these valuables concealed from the com- 
mon gaze. 

Holding up a silken pillow some sixteen inches square, 
she said, "You could not guess with what that pillow is 
filled." We could not, indeed. It was her own hair. 
"With pride she asked us to take it in our hands, that we 
might see how heavj- it was. For sixteen years she had been 
saving it, and it was to be put under her head in her coffin. 
The friend who had taken us to her home exclaimed on 
hearing this, " And I can tell 3-011 it was beautiful hair. 
I recollect it forty-five years ago, bright brown, and down 
to her ankles, and enough of it to roll herself up in." The 
old woman nodded and laughed, much pleased at this com- 
pliment. She did not know why the Lord had preserved 
her life so long, she said ; but she was very happy. Her 
nieces had asked her to go and live with them in Santa 
Ana; but she could not go away from San Gabriel. She 
told them that there was plenty of water in the ditch close 
by her door, and that God would take care of the rest, and 
so he had ; she never wants for anything ; not only is she 
never hungry herself, but she always has food to give 
away. No one would suppose it, but man} 7 people come 
to eat with her in her house. God never forgets her one 
minute. She is very happy. She is never ill ; or if she is, 
she has two remedies, which, in all her life, have never 
failed to cure her, and the}' cost nothing, — saliva and ear- 
wax. For a pain, the sign of the cross, made with saliva 
on the spot which is in pain, is instantaneously effective ; 
for an eruption or any skin disorder, the application of ear- 
wax is a sure cure. She is very glad to live so close to the 
church ; the father has promised her this room as long as 
she lives ; when she dies, it will be no trouble, he says, to 
pick her up and cany her across the road to the church. 
In a ga} r painted box, standing on two chairs, so as to be 
kept from the dampness of the bare earth floor, she cher- 
ishes the few relics of her better days : a shawl and a rib- 
osa of silk, and two gowns, one of black silk, one of dark 
blue satin. These are of the fashions of twenty years ago ; 
they were given to her by her husband. She wears them 
now when she goes to church ; so it is as if she were 
"married again," she says, and is "her husband's work 
still." She seems to be a character well known and held 



ECHOES IN THE CITY OF THE ANGELS. 119 

in some regard by the clergy of her church. When the 
bishop returned a few years ago from a visit to Rome, he 
brought her a little gift, a carved figure of a saint. She 
asked him if he could not get for her a bit of the relics of 
Saint Viviano. " Oh, let alone ! " he replied ; " give you 
relics? Wait a bit; and as soon as you die, I'll have 
3'ou made into relics 3-ourself." She laughed as heartily, 
telling this somewhat unecclesiastical rejoinder, as if it 
had been made at some other person's expense. 

In the marvellously preserving air of California, added to 
her own contented temperament, there is no reason why 
this happ}- old lady should not last, as some of her Indian 
neighbors have, well into a second century. Before she 
ceases from her peaceful, pitiful little labors, new genera- 
tions of millionnaires in her country will no doubt have piled 
up bigger fortunes than this generation ever dreams of, 
but there will not be a man of them all so rich as she. 

In the western suburbs of Los Angeles is a low adobe 
house, built after the ancient style, on three sides of a 
square, surrounded b} T orchards, vineyards, and orange 
groves, and looking out on an old-fashioned garden, in 
which southernwood, rue, lavender, mint, marigolds, and 
gillyflowers hold their own bravelv, growing in straight 
and angular beds among the newer splendors of verbenas, 
roses, carnations, and geraniums. On two sides of the 
house runs a broad porch, where stand rows of geraniums 
and chr3'santhemums growing in odd-shaped earthen pots. 
Here ma3 r often be seen a beautiful 3'oung Mexican woman, 
flitting about among the plants, or sporting with a superb 
Saint Bernard dog. Her clear olive skin, soft brown eyes, 
delicate sensitive nostrils, and broad smiling mouth, are 
all of the Spanish madonna t3~pe ; and when her low brow 
is bound, as is often her wont, 03- turban folds of soft 
brown or green gauze, her face becomes a picture indeed. 
She is the 3~oung wife of a gray-headed Mexican seiior, of 
whom — by his own most gracious permission — I shall 
speak hy his familiar name, Don Antonio. Whoever has 
the fortune to pass as a friend across the threshold of this 
house finds himself transported, as by a miracle, into the 
life of a half-century ago. The rooms are ornamented 
with fans, shells, feather and wax flowers, pictures, saints' 
images, old laces, and stuffs, in the quaint gay Mexican 



120 CALIFORNIA AND OREGON. 

fashion. On the day when I first saw them, they were 
brilliant with bloom. In every one of the deep window- 
seats stood a cone of bright flowers, its base made b}' large 
white datura blossoms, their creamy whorls all turned out- 
ward, making a superb decoration. I went for but a few 
moments' call. I staj'ed three hours, and left carrying 
with me bewildering treasures of pictures of the olden 
time. 

Don Antonio speaks little English ; but the sefiora 
knows just enough of the language to make her use of it 
delicious, as she translates for her husband. It is an en- 
trancing sight to watch his dark, weather-beaten face, full 
of lightning changes as he pours out torrents of his ner- 
vous, eloquent Spanish speech ; watching his wife intently, 
hearkening to each word she uses, sometimes interrupting 
her urgently with, " No, no ; that is not it," — for he well 
understands the tongue he cannot or will not use for him- 
self. He is sixty- five years of age, but he is young : the 
best waltzer in Los Angeles to-da} T ; his eye keen, his 
blood fiery quick ; his memory like a burning-glass bring- 
ing into sharp light and focus a half-century as if it were 
a yesterday. Full of sentiment, of an intense and poetic 
nature, he looks back to the lost empire of his race and 
people on the California shores with a sorrow far too proud 
for any antagonisms or complaints. He recognizes the 
inexorableness of the laws under whose workings his na- 
tion is slowly, surely giving place to one more representa- 
tive of the age. Intellectually he is in sympathy with 
progress, with reform, with civilization at its utmost; he 
would not have had them stayed, or changed, because his 
people could not keep up, and were not ready. But his 
heart is none the less saddened and lonely. 

This is probabl} T the position and point of view of most 
cultivated Mexican men of his age. The suffering in- 
volved in it is inevitable. It is part of the great, unrede- 
emed price which must alwa} T s be paid for the gain the 
world gets, when the young and strong supersede the old 
and weak. 

A sumry little southeast corner room in Don Antonio's 
house is full of the relics of the time when he and his 
father were foremost representatives of ideas and progress 
in the City of the Angels, and taught the first school that 



ECHOES IN THE CITY OF THE ANGELS. 121 

was kept in the place. This was nearly a half-century 
ago. On the walls of the room still hang maps and 
charts which they used ; and carefully preserved, with the 
tender reverence of which only poetic natures are capable, 
are still to be seen there the old atlases, primers, cate- 
chisms, grammars, reading-books, which meant toil and 
trouble to the merry, ignorant children of the merry and 
ignorant people of that time. 

The leathern covers of the books are thin and frayed by 
long handling ; the edges of the leaves worn down as if 
mice had gnawed them : tattered, loose, hanging by yellow 
threads, the}' look far older than they are, and bear vivid 
record of the days when books were so rare and precious 
that each book did doubled and redoubled duty, passing 
from hand to hand and house to house. It was on the old 
Lancaster system that Los Angeles set out in educating its 
children ; and here are still preserved the formal and elab- 
orate instructions for teachers and schools on that plan ; 
also volumes of Spain's laws for military judges in 1781, 
and a quaint old volume called " Secrets of Agriculture, 
Fields and Pastures," written by a Catholic Father in 1617, 
reprinted in 1781, and held of great value in its da}' as a 
sure guide to success with crops. Accompanying it was a 
chart, a perpetual circle, by which might be foretold, with 
certainty, what years would be barren and what ones 
fruitful. 

Almanacs, histories, arithmetics, dating back to 1750, 
drawing-books, multiplication tables, music, and bundles 
of records of the branding of cattle at the San Gabriel 
Mission, are among the curiosities of this room. The 
music of the first quadrilles ever danced in Mexico is 
here : a ragged pamphlet, which, no doubt, went gleeful 
rounds in the City of the Angels for many a year. It is 
a merry music, simple in melody, but with an especial 
quality of light-heartedness, suiting the people who danced 
to it. 

There are also in the little room many relics of a more 
substantial sort than tattered papers and books : a brand- 
ing-iron and a pair of handcuffs from the San Gabriel Mis- 
sion ; curiously decorated clubs and sticks used by the 
Indians in their games ; boxes of silver rings and balls 
made for decorations of bridles and on leggings and 



122 CALIFORNIA AND OREGON. 

knee-breeches. The place of honor in the room is given, 
as well it might be, to a small cannon, the first cannon 
brought into California. It was made in 1717, and was 
brought by Father Junipero Serra to San Diego in 1769. 
Afterward it was given to the San Gabriel Mission, but it 
still bears its old name, " San Diego." It is an odd little 
arm, only about two feet long, and requiring but six 
ounces of powder. Its swivel is made with a rest to set 
firm in the ground. It has taken many long journej'S on 
the backs of mules, having been in great requisition in the 
early mission days for the firing of salutes at festivals and 
feasts. 

Don Antonio was but a lad when his father's family re- 
moved from the city of Mexico to California. They came 
in one of the many unfortunate colonies sent out by the 
Mexican Government during the first }'ears of the secular- 
ization period, having had a toilsome and suffering two 
months, going in wagons from Mexico to San Bias, then a 
tedious and uncomfortable voyage of several weeks from 
San Bias to Monterey, where they arrived only to find 
themselves deceived and disappointed in every particular, 
and surrounded by hostilities, plots, and clangers on all 
sides. So great was the antagonism to them that it was 
at times difficult for a colonist to obtain food from a Cali- 
fornian. They were arrested on false pretences, thrown 
into prison, shipped off like convicts from place to place, 
with no one to protect them or plead their cause. Revolu- 
tion succeeded upon revolution, and it was a most unhappy 
period for all refined and cultivated persons who had 
joined the colony enterprises. Young men of education 
and breeding were glad to earn their daily bread by any 
menial labor that offered. Don Antonio and several of 
his young friends, who had all studied medicine together, 
spent the greater part of a A'ear in making shingles. The 
one hope and aim of most of them was to earn money 
enough to get back to Mexico. Don Antonio, however, 
seems to have had more versatility and capacity than his 
friends, for he never lost courage ; and it was owing to him 
that at last his whole family gathered in Los Angeles and 
established a home there. This was in 1836. There were 
then only about eight hundred people in the pueblo, and 
the customs, superstitions, and ignorances of the earliest 



ECHOES IN THE CITY OF THE ANGELS. 123 

days still held sway. The missions were still rich and 
powerful, though the confusions and conflicts of their ruin 
had begun. At this time the young Antonio, being quick 
at accounts and naturally ingenious at all sorts of mechani- 
cal crafts, found profit as well as pleasure in journeying 
from mission to mission, sometimes spending two or three 
months in one place, keeping books, or repairing silver 
and gold ornaments. 

The blowpipe which he made for himself at that time 
his wife exhibits now with affectionate pride ; and there 
are few things she enjoys better than translating to an 
eager listener his graphic stories of the incidents and 
adventures of that portion of his life. 

While he was at the San Antonio Mission, a strange 
thing happened. It is a good illustration of the stintless 
hospitality of those old missions, that staying there at that 
time were a notorious gambler and a celebrated juggler 
who had come out in the colony from Mexico. The jug- 
gler threatened to turn the gambler into a crow ; the gam- 
bler, after watching his tricks for a short time, became 
frightened, and asked 3*oung Antonio, in serious good 
faith, if he did not believe the juggler had made a league 
with the devil. A few nights afterward, at midnight, a 
terrible noise was heard in the gambler's room. He was 
found in convulsions, foaming at the mouth, and crying, 
"Oh, father ! father ! I have got the devil inside of me ! 
Take him away ! " 

The priest dragged him into the chapel, showered him 
with holy water, and exorcised the devil, first making the 
gambler promise to leave off his gambling forever. All the 
rest of the night the rescued sinner spent in the chapel, 
praying and weeping. In the morning he announced his 
intention of becoming a priest, and began his studies at 
once. These he faithful!}' pursued for a 3*ear, leading all 
the while a life of great devotion. At the end of that 
time preparations were made for his ordination at San 
Jose. The day was set, the hour came : he was in the 
sacristy, had put on the sacred vestments, and was just 
going toward the church door, when he fell to the floor, 
dead. Soon after this the juggler was banished from the 
country, trouble and disaster having everywhere followed 
on his presence. 



124 CALIFORNIA AND OREGON. 

On the first breaking out of hostilities between California 
and the United States, Don Antonio took command of a 
company of Los Angeles volunteers to repel the intruders. 
By this time he had attained a prominent position in the 
affairs of the pueblo ; had been alcalde and, under Governor 
Michelorena, inspector of public works. It was like the 
fighting of children, — the impetuous attempts that hetero- 
geneous little bands of Californians here and there made to 
hold their country. The} 7 were pluck}' from first to last ; 
for they were everywhere at a disadvantage, and fought on, 
quite in the dark as to what Mexico meant to do about 
them, — whether she might not any morning deliver them 
over to the enemy. Of all Don Antonio's graphic narra- 
tives of the olden time, none is more interesting than those 
which describe his adventures during the days of this con- 
test. On one of the first approaches made by the Ameri- 
cans to Los Angeles, he went out with his little haphazard 
compairy of men and boys to meet them. He had but one 
cannon, a small one, tied by ropes on a cart axle. He had 
but one small keg of powder which was good for anything ; 
all the rest was bad, would merely go off "pouf, pouf," 
the senora said, and the ball would pop down near the 
mouth of the cannon. With this bad powder he fired his 
first shots. The Americans laughed ; this is child's play, 
the}' said, and pushed on closer. Then came a good shot, 
with the good powder, tearing into their ranks and knock- 
ing them right and left; another, and another. "Then 
the Americans began to think, these are no pouf balls ; 
and when a few more were killed, they ran away and left 
their flag behind them. And if they had only known 
it, the Californians had only one more charge left of the 
good powder, and the next minute it would have been 
the Californians that would have had to run away 
themselves," merrily laughed the senora as she told the 
tale. 

This captured flag, with important papers, was intrusted 
to Don Antonio to carry to the Mexican headquarters at 
Sonora. He set off with an escort of soldiers, his horse 
decked with silver trappings ; his sword, pistols, all of 
the finest : a proud beginning of a journey destined to end 
in a different fashion. It was in winter time ; cold rains 
were falling. By night he was drenched to the skin, and 



ECHOES IN THE CITY OF THE ANGELS. 125 

stopped at a friendty Indian's tent to change his clothes. 
Hardly had he got them off when the sound of horses' 
hoofs was heard. The Indian flung himself down, put his 
ear to the ground, and exclaimed, "Americanos! Ameri- 
canos ! " Almost in the same second the}- were at the 
tent's door. As the} T halted, Don Antonio, clad only in 
his drawers and stockings, crawled out at the back of the 
tent, and creeping on all fours reached a tree up which he 
climbed, and sat safe hidden in the darkness among its 
branches listening, while his pursuers cross-questioned the 
Indian, and at last rode away with his horse. Luckily, 
he had carried into the tent the precious papers and the 
captured flag : these he intrusted to an Indian to take to 
Sonora, it being evidently of no use for him to try to cross 
the country thus closely pursued 03' his enemies. 

All night he lay hidden ; the next clay he walked twelve 
miles across the mountains to an Indian village where he 
hoped to get a horse. It was dark when he reached it. 
Cautiously he opened the door of the hut of one whom he 
knew well. The Indian was preparing poisoned arrows : 
fixing one on the string and aiming at the door, he called 
out, angrily, "Who is there?" — "It is I, Antonio." — 
"Don't make a sound," whispered the Indian, throwing 
down his arrow, springing to the door, coming out and 
closing it softly. He then proceeded to tell him that the 
Americans had offered a reward for his head, and that 
some of the Indians in the rancheria were ready to betray 
or kill him. While they were 3-et talking, again came the 
sound of the Americans' horses' hoofs galloping in the dis- 
tance. This time there seemed no escape. Suddenly Don 
Antonio, throwing himself on his stomach, wriggled into a 
cactus patch near by. Only one who has seen California 
cactus thickets can realize the desperateness of this act. 
But it succeeded. The Indian threw over the cactus plants 
an old blanket and some refuse stalks and reeds ; and there 
once more, within hearing of all his baffled pursuers said, 
the hunted man lay, safe, thanks to Indian friendship. The 
crafty Indian assented to all the Americans proposed, said 
that Don Antonio would be sure to be caught in a few 
days, advised them to search in a certain rancheria which 
he described, a few miles off, and in an opposite direction 
from the way in which he intended to guide Don Antonio. 



126 CALIFORNIA AND OREGON. 

As soon as the Americans had gone, he bound up Antonio's 
feet in strips of rawhide, gave him a blanket and an old 
tattered hat, the best his stores afforded, and then led him 
1)3' a long and difficult trail to a spot high up in the moun- 
tains where the old women of the band were gathering 
acorns. By the time they reached this place, blood was 
trickling from Antonio's feet and legs, and he was well-nigh 
fainting with fatigue and excitement, Tears rolled down 
the old women's cheeks when the} T saw him. Some of them 
had been servants in his father's house, and loved him. 
One brought gruel ; another bathed his feet ; others ran 
in search of healing leaves of different sorts. Bruising 
these in a stone mortar, they rubbed him from head to foot 
with the wet fibre. All his pain and weariness vanished 
as by magic. His wounds healed, and in a day he was 
read}' to set off for home. There was but one pony in the 
old women's camp. This was old, vicious, blind of one 
eye, and with one ear cropped short ; but it looked to Don 
Antonio far more beautiful than the gay steed on which 
he had ridden away from Los Angeles three days before. 
There was one pair of ragged shoes of enormous size 
among the old women's possessions. These were strapped 
on his feet by leathern thongs, and a bit of old sheepskin 
was tied around the pony's bocfy. Thus accoutred and 
mounted, shivering in his drawers under his single blanket, 
the captain and flag-bearer turned his face homeward. At 
the first friend's house he reached he stopped and begged for 
food. Some dried meat was given to him, and a stool on 
the porch offered to him. It was the house of a dear friend, 
and the friend's sister was his sweetheart. As he sat there 
eating his meat, the women eyed him curiously. One said 
to the other, "How much he looks like Antonio ! " At 
last the sweetheart, coming nearer, asked him if he were 
"ain- relation of Don Antonio." "No," he said. Just 
at that moment his friend rode up, gave one glance at the 
pitiful beggar sitting on his porch, shouted his name, 
dashed toward him, and seized him in his arms. Then was 
a great laughing and half-weeping, for it had been rumored 
that he had been taken prisoner by the Americans. 

From this friend he received a welcome gift of a pair of 
trousers, many inches too short for his legs. At the next 
house his friend was as much too tall, and his second pair 



ECHOES IN TEE CITY OF THE ANGELS. 127 

of gift trousers had to be rolled np in thick folds around 
his ankles. 

Finall}- he reached Los Angeles in safet}\ Halting in 
a grove outside the town, he waited till twilight before 
entering. Having disguised himself in the rags which he 
had worn from the Indian village, he rode boldly up to the 
porch of his father's house, and in an impudent tone called 
for brandy. The terrified women began to scream ; but 
his youngest sister, fixing one piercing glance on his face, 
laughed out gladly, and cried, "You can't fool me; 3*011 
are Antonio." 

Sitting in the little corner room, looking out through 
the open door on the gay garden and breathing its spring 
air, gay even in midwinter, and as spicy then as the gar- 
dens of other lands are in June, I spent many an after- 
noon listening to such tales as this. Sunset always came 
long before its time, it seemed, on these days. 

Occasional!-/, at the last moment, Don Antonio would 
take up his guitar, and, in a voice still sympathetic and 
full of meloclv, sing an old Spanish love-song, brought to 
his mind by thus living over the events of his youth. 
Never, however, in his most ardent youth, could his ej-es 
have gazed on his fairest sweetheart's face with a look of 
greater devotion than that with which they now rest on 
the noble, expressive countenance of his wife, as he sings 
the ancient and tender strains. Of one of them, I once 
won from her, amid laughs and blushes, a few words of 
translation : — 

" Let us hear the sweet echo 
Of your sweet voice that charms me. 
The one that truly loves you, 
He says he wishes to love ; 
That the one who with ardent love adores you, 
Will sacrifice himself for you. 
Do not deprive me, 

Owner of me, 
Of that sweet echo 
Of your sweet voice that charms me." 

Near the western end of Don Antonio's porch is an 
orange-tree, on which were hanging at this time twent} T - 
five hundred oranges, ripe and golden among the glossy 
leaves. Under this tree my carnage always waited for me. 



128 CALIFORNIA AND OREGON. 

The seiiora never allowed me to depart without bringing 
to me, in the carriage, farewell gifts of flowers and fruit: 
clusters of grapes, dried and fresh ; great boughs full of 
oranges, more than I could lift. As I drove away thus, 
my lap filled with bloom and golden fruit, canopies of 
golden fruit over my head, I said to myself often : ' l Fables 
are prophecies. The Hesperides have come true." 



CHANCE DAYS IN OREGON. 

The best things in life seem always snatched on chances. 
The longer one lives and looks back, the more he realizes 
this, and the harder he finds it to u make option which of 
two," in the perpetually recurring cases when " there 's 
not enough for this and that," and he must choose which 
he will do or take. Chancing right in a decision, and see- 
ing clearly what a blunder an} 7 other decision would have 
been, onry makes the next such decision harder, and con- 
tributes to increased vacillation of purpose and infirmly 
of will, until one comes to have serious doubts whether 
there be not a truer philosoph\' in the ' k toss up " test than 
in any other method. " Heads we go, tails we stay," will 
prove right as many times out of ten as the most pains- 
taking pros and cons, weighing, consulting, and slow 
deciding. 

It was not exacth r b} T " heads and tails" that we won 
our glimpse of Oregon ; but it came so nearly to the 
same thing that our recollections of the journey are still 
mingled with that sort of exultant sense of delight with 
which the human mind always regards a pur'ety fortuitous 
possession. 

Three days and two nights on the Pacific Ocean is a 
round price to pay for a thing, even for Oregon, with the 
Columbia River thrown in. There is not so misnamed a 
piece of water on the globe as the Pacific Ocean, nor so 
unexplainable a delusion as the almost universal impres- 
sion that it is smooth sailing there. It is British Channel 
and North Sea and off the Hebrides combined, — as many 
different twists and chops and swells as there are waves. 
People who have crossed the Atlantic again and again 
without so much as a qualm are desperately ill between 

9 



130 CALIFORNIA AND OREGON. 

San Francisco and Portland. There is but one compar- 
ison for the motion : it is as if one's stomach were being 
treated as double teeth are handled, when countiy doctors 
are forced to officiate as dentists, and know no better way 
to get a four-pronged tooth out of its socket than to turn 
it round and round till it is torn loose. 

Three days and two nights ! I spent no inconsiderable 
portion of the time in speculations as to Monsieur Antoine 
Crozat's probable reasons for giving back to King Louis 
his magnificent grant of Pacific coast country. He kept it 
five years, I believe. In that time he probably voyaged up 
and down its shores thoroughly. Having been an adven- 
turous trader in the Indies, he must have been well wonted 
to seas ; and being worth forty millions of livres, he could 
afford to make himself as* comfortable in the matter of a 
ship as was possible a century and a half ago. His grant 
was a princel}' domain, an empire five times larger than 
France itself. What could he have been thinking of, to 
hand it back to King Louis like a worthless bauble of 
which he had grown tired? Nothing but the terrors of 
sea-sickness can explain it. If he could have foreseen the 
steam-engine, and have had a vision of it flying on iron 
roads across continents and mountains, how differently 
would he have conducted ! The heirs of Monsieur An- 
toine, if any such there be to-day, must chafe when the}* 
read the terms of our Louisiana Purchase. 

Three days and two nights — from Thursda}' morning 
till Saturday afternoon — between San Francisco and the 
mouth of the Columbia, and then we had to lie at Astoria 
the greater part of Sunda} 7 night before the tide would let 
ns go on up the river. It was not waste time, however. 
Astoria is a place curious to behold. Seen from the water, 
it seems a tidy little white town nestled on the shore, and 
well topped off by wooded hills. Landing, one finds that 
it must be ranked as amphibious, being literally half on 
land and half on water. From Astoria proper — the old 
Astoria, which Mr. Astor founded, and Washington Irving 
described — up to the new town, or upper Astoria, is a mile 
and a half, two thirds bridges and piers. Long wooden 
wharves, more streets than wharves, resting on hundreds 
of piles, are built out to deep water. The} 7 fairly fringe 
the shore ; and the street nearest the water is. little more 



CHANCE DAYS IN OREGON 131 

than a succession of bridges from wharf to wharf. Fre- 
quent bays and inlets make up, leaving unsightly muddy 
wastes when the tide goes out. To see family washing 
hung out on lines over these tidal flats, and the family 
infants drawing their go-carts in the mud below, was a 
droll sight. At least every other building on these strange 
wharf streets is a salmon cannery, and acres of the wharf 
surfaces were covered with salmon nets spread out to dry. 
The streets were crowded with wild-looking men, sailor- 
like, and } T et not sailor-like, all wearing india-rubber boots 
reaching far above the knee, with queer wing-like flaps 
projecting all around at top. These were the fishers of 
salmon, two thousand of them, Russians, Finns, Germans, 
Italians, — " every kind on the earth," an old restaurant- 
keeper said, in speaking of them; "every kind on the 
earth, they pour in here, for four months, from May to 
September. They 're a wild set ; clear out with the salmon, 
'n' don't mind any more 'n the fish do what they leave be- 
hind 'em." 

All day long the} 7 kill time in the saloons. The nights 
they spend on the water, flinging and trolling and draw- 
ing in their nets, which often burst with the weight of the 
captured salmon. It is a strange life, and one sure to 
foster a man's worst traits rather than his best ones. The 
fishermen who have homes and families, and are loyal to 
them, industrious and thrifty, are the exception. 

The site of Mr. Astor's original fort is now the terraced 
3'ard of a spruce new house on the corner of one of the 
pleasantest streets in the old town. These streets are little 
more than narrow terraces rising one above the other on 
jutting and jagged levels of the river-bank. They com- 
mand superb off-looks across and up and down the ma- 
jestic river, which is here far more a bay than a river. 
The Astoria people must be strangely indifferent to these 
views ; for the majority of the finest houses face away 
from the water, looking straight into the rough wooded 
hillside. 

Uncouth and quaint vehicles are perpetually plying be- 
tween the old and' the new towns ; they jolt along fast 
over the narrow wooden roads, and the foot-passengers, 
who have no other place to walk, are perpetually scram- 
bling from under the horses' heels. It is a unique highway : 



132 CALIFORNIA AND OREGON. 

pebbly beacbes, marshes, and salt ponds, alder-grown 
cliffs, hemlock and spruce copses on its inland side ; on 
the water-side, bustling wharves, canneries, fishermen's 
boarding-houses, great spaces filled in with bare piles wait- 
ing to be floored ; at every turn shore and sea seem to 
change sides, and clumps of brakes, fresh-hewn stumps, 
maple and madrone trees, shift places with canneries and 
wharves ; the sea swashes under the planks of the road at 
one minute, and the next is an eighth of a mile away, at 
the end of a close-built lane. Even in the thickest settled 
business part of the town, blocks of water alternate with 
blocks of brick and stone. 

The statistics of the salmon-canning business almost 
pass belief. In 1881 six hundred thousand cases of 
canned salmon were shipped from Astoria. We ourselves 
saw sevent3'-five hundred cases put on board one steamer. 
There were forty eight-pound cans in each case ; it took 
five hours' steady work, of forty "long-shore men," to 
load them. These long-shore men are another shifting 
and turbulent element in the populations of the river 
towns. They work day and night, get big wages, go from 
place to place, and spend money recklessly ; a sort of 
commercial Bohemian, difficult to handle and often dan- 
gerous. They sometimes elect to take fifty cents an hour 
and all the beer they can drink, rather than a dollar an 
hour and no beer. At the time we saw them, the}' were 
on beer wages. The foaming beer casks stood at short 
intervals along the wharf, — a pitcher, pail, and mug at 
each cask. The scene was a lively one : four cases loaded 
at a time on each truck, run swiftly to the wharf edge, 
and slid down the hold ; trucks rattling, turning "sharp 
corners ; men laughing, wheeling to right and left of each 
other, tossing off mugs of beer, wiping their mouths with 
their hands, and flinging the drops in the air with jests, — 
one half forgave them for taking part wages in the beer, 
it made it so much merrier. 

On Sunday morning we waked up to find ourselves at sea 
in the Columbia River. A good part of Oregon and Wash- 
ington Territoiy seemed also to be at sea there. When 
a river of the size of the Columbia gets thirty feet above 
low-water mark, towns and townships go to sea unexpect- 
edly. All the way up the Columbia to the Willamette, 



CHANCE DAYS IN OREGON. 133 

and down the Willamette to Portland, we sailed in and on 
a freshet, and saw at once more and less of the country 
than could be seen at any other time. At the town of 
Kalama, facetiously announced as "the water terminus 
of the Northern Pacific Railroad," the hotel, the railroad 
station, and its warehouses were entirely surrounded by 
water, and we sailed, in seemingly deep water, directly 
over the wharf where landings were usually made. At 
other towns on the way we ran well up into the fields, 
and landed passengers or freight on stra}' sand-spits, or hil- 
locks, from which they could get off again on the other 
side by small boats. We passed scores of deserted houses, 
their windows open, the water swashing over their door- 
sills ; gardens with only tops of bushes in sight, one with 
red roses swaying back and forth, limp and helpless on the 
tide. It seemed strange that men w-ould build houses and 
make farms in a place where the}' are each year liable to 
be driven out by such freshets. When I expressed this 
wonder, an Oregonian replied lightly, "Oh, the river 
always gives them plenty of time. They've all got boats, 
and they wait till the last minute always, hoping the 
water '11 go down." — " But it must be unwholesome to 
the last degree to live on such overflowed lands. When 
the water recedes, they must get fevers." — " Oh, they get 
used to it. After the}' 've taken about a barrel of quinine, 
they 're pretty well acclimated." 

Other inhabitants of the country asserted roundly that no 
fevers followed these freshets ; that the trade-winds swept 
away all malarial influences ; that the water did no injury 
whatever to the farms, — on the contrary, made the crops 
better ; and that these farmers along the river bottoms 
" could n't be hired to live anywhere else in Oregon." 

The higher shore lines were wooded almost without a 
break ; only at long intervals an oasis of clearing, high up, 
an emerald spot of barley or wheat, and a tiny farm-house. 
These were said to be usually lumbermen's homes ; it was 
warmer up there than in the bottom, and crops thrived. 
In the not far-off day when these kingdoms of forests are 
overthrown, and the Columbia runs unshaded to the sea, 
these hill shores will be one vast granary. 

The city of Portland is on the Willamette River, four- 
teen miles south of the junction of that river with the 



134 CALIFORNIA AND OREGON. 

Columbia. Seen from its water approach, Portland is a 
picturesque city, with a near surrounding of hills, wooded 
with pines and firs, that make a superb sky-line setting to 
the town, and to the five grand snow-peaks, of which clear 
da}*s give a sight. These dark forests and spear- top 
fringes are a more distinctive feature in the beauty of 
Portland's site than even its fine waters and islands. It is 
to be hoped that the Portland people will appreciate their 
value, and never let their near hills be shorn of trees. 
Not one tree more should be cut. Already there are 
breaks in the forest horizons, which mar the picture 
greatly ; and it would take but a few da} T s of ruthless 
woodchoppers' work to rob the city forever of its back- 
grounds, turning them into unsightly barrens. The city 
is on both sides of the river, and is called East and West 
Portland. With the usual perversity in such cases, the 
higher ground and the sunny eastern frontage belong to 
the less popular part of the city, the west town having 
most of the business and all of the fine houses. Yet in 
times of freshet its lower streets are always under water ; 
and the setting-up of back-water into drains, cellars, and 
empty lots is a yearly source of much illness. When we 
arrived, two of the principal hotels were surrounded by 
water ; from one of them there was no going out or coin- 
ing in except hy planks laid on trestle-work in the piazzas, 
and the air in the lower part of the town was foul with 
bad smells from the stagnant water. 

Portland is only thirty years old, and its population is 
not over twenty-five thousand ; yet it is said to have more 
wealth per head than any other city in the United States 
except New Haven. Wheat and lumber and salmon have 
made it rich. Oregon wheat brings such prices in Eng- 
land that ships can afford to cross the ocean to get it ; and 
last year one hundred and thirty-four vessels sailed out of 
Portland harbor, loaded solely with wheat or flour. 

The city reminds one strongly of some of the rural 
towns in New England. The houses are unpretentious, 
wooden, either white or of light colors, and uniformly sur- 
rounded by pleasant grounds, in which trees, shrubs, and 
flowers grow freely, without any attempt at formal or dec- 
orative culture. One of the most delightful things about 
the town is its surrounding of wild and wooded country. 



CHANCE DAYS IN OREGON. 135 

In an hour, driving up on the hills to the west, one finds 
himself in wildernesses of woods : spruce, maple, cedar, 
and pine ; dogwood, wild syringa, honeysuckle, ferns and 
brakes fitting in for undergrowth ; and below all, white 
clover matting the ground. By the roadsides are Linnsea, 
red clover, yarrow, May- weed, and dandelion, looking to 
New England ej'es strangely familiar and unfamiliar at 
once. Never in New England woods and roadsides do 
they have such a luxurious diet of water and rich soil, and 
such comfortable warm winters. The white clover espe- 
cially has an air of spendthrifty indulgence about it which is 
delicious. It riots through the woods, even in their den- 
sest, darkest depths, making luxuriant pasturage where one 
would least look for it. On these wooded heights are 
scores of daily farms, which have no clearings except of 
the space needful for the house and outbuildings. The 
cows, each with a bell at her neck, go roaming and 
browsing all da}' in the forests. Out of thickets scarcely 
penetrable to the eye come everywhere along the road 
the contented notes of these bells' slow tinkling at the 
cows' leisure. The milk, cream, and butter from these 
dairy farms are of the excellent quality to be expected, 
and we wondered at not seeing " white clover butter" ad- 
vertised as well as " white clover honey." Land in these 
wooded wilds brings from forty to eighty dollars an acre ; 
cleared, it is admirable farm land. Here and there we 
saw orchards of cherry and apple trees, which were loaded 
with fruit ; the cherry trees so full that they showed red 
at a distance. 

The alternation of these farms with long tracts of forest, 
where spruces and pines stand a hundred and fifty feet 
high, and myriads of wild things have grown in genera- 
tions of tangle, gives to the country around Portland a 
charm and flavor peculiarly its own ; even into the city it- 
self extends something of the same charm of contrast and 
antithesis ; meandering footpaths, or narrow plank side- 
walks with grass}' rims, running within stone's-throw of 
solid brick blocks and business thoroughfares. One of the 
most interesting places in the town is the Bureau of Immi- 
gration of the Northern Pacific Railroad. In the centre 
of the room stands a tall case, made of the native Oregon 
woods. It journeyed to the Paris and the Philadelphia 



136 CALIFORNIA AND OREGON. 

Expositions, but nowhere can it have given eloquent mute 
answer to so many questions as it does in its present place. 
It now holds jars of all the grains raised in Oregon and 
Washington Territory ; also sheaves of superb stalks of 
the same grains, arranged in circles, — wheat six feet high, 
oats ten, red clover over six, and timothy grass eight. To 
see Swedes, Norwegians, Germans, Irish, come in, stand 
worideringly before this case, and then begin to ask their 
jargon of questions, was an experience which did more in 
an hour to make one realize what the present tide of immi- 
gration to the New Northwest realty is than reading of 
statistics could do in a year. These immigrants are pour- 
ing in, it is estimated, at the rate of at least a hundred and 
fifty a day, — one hundred by way of San Francisco and 
Portland, twenty-five D3 7 the Puget Sound ports, and an- 
other twenty-five overland hy wagons ; no two with the 
same aim, no two alike in qualhrv or capacity. To listen to 
their inquiries and their narratives, to give them advice and 
help, requires almost preternatural patience and sagacity. 
It might be doubted, perhaps, whether this requisite com- 
bination could be found in an American ; certainty no one 
of any nationality could fill the office better than it is filled 
by the tireless Norwegian who occupies the post at pres- 
ent. It was touching to see the brightened faces of his 
countrymen, as their broken English was answered by him 
in the familiar words of their own tongue. He could tell 
well which parts of the new country would best suit the 
Hardanger men, and the men from Eide. It must have 
been hard for them to believe his statements, even when 
indorsed by the home speech. To the ordinary Scandina- 
vian peasant, accustomed to measuring cultivable ground 
by hand-breadths, and making gardens in pockets in rocks, 
tales of hundreds of unbroken miles of wheat country, 
where crops average from thirtj'-five to forty-five bushels 
an acre, must sound incredible ; and spite of their faith in 
their countryman, they are no doubt surprised when their 
first harvest in the Willamette or Umpqua valley proves 
that his statements were under, rather than over, the 
truth. 

The Columbia River steamers set off from Portland at 
dawn, or thereabouts. Wise travellers go on board the 
night before, and their first morning consciousness is a 



CHANCE DAYS IN OREGON. 137 

wonder at finding themselves afloat, — afloat on a sea ; for 
it hardly seems like river voyaging when shores are miles 
apart, and, in many broad vistas, water is all that can 
be seen. These vistas, in times of high water, when the 
Columbia may be said to be fairly "seas over," are grand. 
They shine and flicker for miles, right and left, with green 
feathery fringes of tree-tops, and queer brown stippled 
points and ridges, which are house gables and roof-trees, 
not quite gone under. One almost forgets, in the interest 
of the spectacle, what misery it means to the owners of the 
gables and roof-trees. 

At "VVashougal Landing, on the morning when we went 
up the river, all that was to be seen of the warehouse on 
the wharf at which we should have made landing was the 
narrow ridge-line of its roof; and this was at least a third 
of a mile out from shore. The boat stopped, and the 
passengers were rowed out in boats and canoes, steering 
around among tree-tops and houses as best they might. 

The true shore-line of the river we never once saw ; but 
it cannot be so beautiful as was the freshet's shore of 
upper banks and terraces, — dark forests at top, shifting 
shades of blue in every rift between the hills, iridescent 
rainbow colors on the slopes, and gray clouds, white-edged, 
piled up in masses above them, all floating apace with 
us, and changing tone and tint oftener than we changed 
course. 

As we approached the Cascade Mountains, the scenery 
grew grander with every mile. The river cuts through this 
range in a winding canon, whose sides for a space of four 
or five miles are from three to four thousand feet high. 
But the charm of this pass is not so much in the height 
and grandeur as in the beauty of its walls. They vary in 
color and angle, and light and shadow, each second, — per- 
pendicular rock fronts, moss t y brown ; shelves of velvets- 
greenness and ledges of glistening red or black stone 
thrown across ; great basaltic columns fluted as by a chisel ; 
jutting tables of rock carpeted with yellow and brown 
lichen ; turrets standing out with firs growing on them ; 
bosky points of Cottonwood trees ; yellow and white blos- 
soms and curtains of ferns, waving out, hanging over ; and 
towering above all these, peaks and summits wrapped in 
fleecy clouds. Looking ahead, we could see sometimes 



138 CALIFORNIA AND OREGON. 

onty castellated mountain lines, meeting across the river, 
like walls ; as we advanced they retreated, and opened 
with new vistas at each opening. Shining threads of wa- 
ter spun down in the highest places, sometimes falling 
sheer to the river, sometimes sinking out of sight in forest 
depths midway down, like the famed fosses of the Norway 
fjords. Long sky-lines of pines and firs, which we knew 
to be from one hundred to three hundred feet tall, looked 
in the aerial perspective no more than a mossy border 
along the wall. A little girl, looking up at them, gave by 
one artless exclamation a true idea of this effect. " Oh," 
she cried, " they look just as if you could pick a little bunch 
of them." At intervals along the right-hand shore were 
to be seen the white-tented encampments of the Chinese 
laborers on the road which the Northern Pacific Railroad 
Company is building to link St. Paul with Puget Sound. 
A force of three thousand Chinamen and two thousand 
whites is at work on this river division, and the road is be- 
ing pushed forward with great rapidit} T . The track looked 
in places as if it were not one inch out of the water, though 
it was twenty feet ; and tunnels which were a hundred and 
thirty feet high looked only like oven mouths. It has been 
a hard road to build, costing in some parts sixty -five thou- 
sand dollars a mile. One spot was pointed out to us where 
twenty tons of powder had been put in, in seven drifts, 
and one hundred and forty cubic yards of rock and soil 
blown at one blast into the river. It is an odd thing that 
huge blasts like this make little noise, only a slight puff; 
whereas small blasts make the hills ring and echo with their 
racket. 

Between the lower cascades and the upper cascades is a 
portage of six miles, past fierce waters, in which a boat 
could scarcely live. Here we took cars ; they were over- 
full, and we felt ourselves much aggrieved at being obliged 
to make the short journey standing on one of the 
crowded platforms. It proved to be only another instance 
of the good things caught on chances. Next me stood an 
old couple, the man's neck so burnt and wrinkled it looked 
like fiery red alligator's skin ; his clothes, evidently his 
best, donned for a journey, were of a fashion so long gone 
by that they had a quaint dignity. The woman wore a 
checked calico sun-bonnet, and a green merino gown of as 



CHANCE DAYS IN OREGON. 139 

quaint a fashion as her husband's coat. With them was a 
veritable Leather Stocking, — an old farmer, whose flannel 
shirt, tied loosely at the throat with a bit of twine, fell 
open, and showed a broad hairy breast of which a gladiator 
might have been proud. 

The cars jolted heavily, making it hard to keep one's 
footing ; and the old man came near being shaken off the 
step. Kecovering himself, he said, laughing, to his 
friend, — 

" Anyhow, it's easier 'n abuckin' Ca}~use horse." 

"Yes," assented the other. " T ain't much like '49, 
is it?" 

" Were you here in '49 ? " I asked eagerly. 

" '49 ! " he repeated scornfully. " I was here in '47. 
I was seven months comin' across from Iowa to Oregon 
City in an ox team ; an' we 're livin' on that same section 
we took up then ; an' I reckon there hain't nobod}' got a 
lien on to it yet. We've raised nine children, an' the 
youngest on em 's twenty-one. My woman 's been sick for 
two or three years ; this is the first time I 've got her out. 
Thought we 'd go down to Columbus, an' get a little pleas- 
ure, if we can. We used to come up to this portage in 
boats, an' then pack eveiwthing on horses an' ride across." 

41 We wore buckskin clo'es in those days," interrupted 
Leather Stocking, "and spurs with bells; needn't do 
more 'n jingle the bells, V the horse 'd start. I'd like to 
see them times back agen, too. I vow I 'm put to 't now 
to kfrow where to go. This civilyzation," with an inde- 
scribably sarcastic emphasis on the third syllable, "is too 
much for me. I don't want to live where I can't go out 
'n' kill a deer before breakfast au}' mornin' I take a no- 
tion to." 

"Were there many Indians here in those days?" I 
asked. 

" Man)' Injuns? " he retorted ; " wiry, 't was all Injuns. 
All this country 'long here was jest full on 'em." 

" How did 3'ou find them ? " 

' j Jest 's civil 's any people in the world ; never had no 
trouble with 'em. Nobody never did have any thet treated 
'em fair. I tell ye, it 's jest with them 's 't is with cattle. 
Now there '11 be one man raise cattle, an' be real mean 
with 'em ; an' they'll all hook, an' kick, an' break fences, 



140 CALIFORNIA AND OREGON. 

an' run away. An' there '11 be another, an' his cattle '11 
all be kind, an' come ter yer when you call 'em. I don't 
never want to know anythin' more about a man than the 
way his stock acts. I hain't got a critter that won't come 
up by its name an' lick my hand. An' it 's jest so with 
folks. Ef a man 's mean to you, yer goin' to be mean to 
him, every time. The great thing with Injuns is, never to 
tell 'em a yarn. If yer deceive 'em once, the} r won't ever 
trust yer again, 's long 's yer live, an' you can't trust them 
either. Oh, I know Injuns, I tell you. I 've been among 
'em here more 'n thirty year, an' I never had the first trouble 
yet. There 's been troubles, but I wa'n't in 'em. It 's 
been the white people's fault every time." 

" Did you ever know Chief Joseph ? " I asked. 

"What, old Jo! You bet I knew him. He's an A 
No. 1 Injun, he is. He 's real honorable. Wiry, I got 
lost once, an' I came right on his camp before I knowed 
it, an' the Injuns the}? - grabbed me : 't was night, 'n' I was 
kind o' creepin' along cautious, an' the first thing I knew 
there was an Injun had me on each side, an' they jest 
marched me up to Jo's tent, to know what they should do 
with me. I wa'n't a mite afraid ; I jest looked him right 
square in the eye. That's another thing with Injuns; 
3'ou 've got to look 'em in the eye, or they won't trust ye. 
Well, Jo, he took up a torch, a pine knot he had burnin', 
and he held it close't up to nry face, and looked me up an' 
down, an' down an' up ; an' I never flinched ; I jest looked 
him up an' down 's good 's he did me ; 'n' then he set the 
knot down, 'n' told the men it was all right, — I was 
4 turn turn ; ' that meant I was good heart ; 'n' they gave me 
all I could eat, 'n' a guide to show me my way, next da} T , 
'n' I could n't make Jo nor any of 'em take one cent. I had 
a kind o' comforter o' red yarn, I wore round my neck ; an' 
at last I got Jo to take that, jest as a kind o' momento." 

The old man was greatly indignant to hear that Chief 
Joseph was in Indian Territory. He had been out of the 
State at the time of the Nez Perce war, and had not heard 
of Joseph's fate. 

" Well, that was a dirty mean trick ! " he exclaimed, — 
" a dirty mean trick ! I don't care who done it." 

Then he told me of another Indian chief he had known 
well, — " Ercutch " by name. This chief was always a 



CHANCE DAYS IN OREGON. 141 

warm friend of the whites ; again and again he had warned 
them of danger from hostile Indians. "Wiry, when he 
died, there wa'n't a white woman in all this country that 
did n't mourn 's if she 'd lost a friend ; they felt safe 's 
long 's he was round. When he knew he was dyin' he jest 
bade all his friends good-by. Said he, ' Good-b}' ! I'm 
goin' to the Great Spirit ; ' an' then he named over each 
friend he had, Injuns an' whites, each one by name, and 
said good-b}' after each name." 

It was a strange half-hour, rocking and jolting on this 
crowded car platform, the splendid tossing and foaming 
river with its rocks and islands on one hand, high cliffs 
and fir forests on the other; these three weather-beaten, 
eager, aged faces by my side, with their shrewd old voices 
telling such reminiscences, and rising shrill above the din 
of the cars. 

From the upper cascades to the Dalles, by boat again ; 
a splendid fort}* miles' run, through the mountain-pass, its 
walls now gradually lowering, and, on the Washington 
Territoiy side of the river, terraces and slopes of cleared 
lands and occasional settlements. Great numbers of drift- 
logs passed us here, coming down apace, from the rush of 
the Dalles above. Eveiy now and then one would get 
tangled in the bushes and roots on the shore, swing in, 
and lodge tight to await the next freshet. 

The i; log" of one of these driftwood voyages would be 
interesting ; a tree trunk ma}- be ten years getting down to 
the sea, or it may swirl down in a week. It is one of the 
businesses along the river to catch them, and pull them in 
to shore, and much money is made at it. One lucky fisher 
of logs, on the Snake River Fork, once drew ashore six 
hundred cords in a single } T ear. Sometimes a whole boom 
gets loose from its moorings, and comes down stream, 
without breaking up. This is a godsend to anybody who 
can head it off and tow it in shore ; for by the law of the 
river he is entitled to one half the value of the logs. 

At the Dalles is another short portage of twelve miles, 
past a portion of the river which, though less grand than 
its plunge through the Cascade Mountains, is far more 
unique and wonderful. The waters here are stripped and 
shred into countless zigzagging torrents, boiling along 
through labyrinths of black lava rocks and slabs. There 



142 CALIFORNIA AND OREGON. 

is nothing in all Nature so gloomy, so weird, as volcanic 
slag ; and the piles, ridges, walls, palisades of it thrown up 
at this point look like the roof-trees, chimneys, turrets of 
a half-engulfed Pandemonium. Dark slaty and gray tints 
spread over the whole shore, also ; it is all volcanic matter, 
oozed or boiled over, and hardened into rigid shapes of 
death and destruction. The place is terrible to see. Fit- 
ting in well with the desolateness of the region was a 
group of half-naked Indians crouching on the rocks, gaunt 
and wretched, fishing for salmon ; the hollows in the rocks 
about them filled with the bright vermilion-colored salmon 
spawn, spread out to diy. The twilight was nearly over 
as we sped by, and the deepening darkness added mo- 
mently to the gloom of the scene. 

At Celilo, just above the Dalles, we took boat again for 
Umatilla, one hundred miles farther up the river. 

Next morning we were still among lava beds : on the 
Washington Territory side, low, rolling shores, or slanting 
slopes with terraces, and tufty brown surfaces broken by 
ridges and points of the black slag ; on the Oregon side, 
high brown cliffs mottled with red and }'ellow lichens, and 
great beaches and dunes of sand, which had blown into 
windrows and curving hillock lines as on the sea-shore. 
This sand is a terrible enemy for a railroad to fight. In a 
few hours, sometimes, rods of the track are buried by it 
as deep as by snow in the fiercest winter storms. 

The first picture I saw from my state-room windows, 
this morning, was an Indian standing on a narrow plank 
shelf that was let down by ropes over a perpendicular rock 
front, some fifty feet high. There he stood, as composed 
as if he were on terra firma, bending OA^er towards the 
water, and flinging in his salmon net. On the rocks above 
him sat the women of his family, spreading the salmon to 
dry. We were within so short a distance of the banks that 
friendty smiles could be distinctly seen ; and one of the 
younger squaws, laughing back at the lookers-on on deck, 
picked up a salmon, and waving it in her right hand ran 
swiftly along towards an outjutting point. She was a gay 
creature, with scarlet fringed leggings, a pale green blan- 
ket, and on her head a twisted handkerchief of a fine old 
Diirer red. As she poised herself, and braced backwards 
to throw the salmon on deck, she was a superb figure 



CHANCE DAYS IN OREGON. 143 

against the sky ; she did not throw straight, and the fish 
fell a few inches short of reaching the boat. As it struck 
the water she made a petulant little gesture of disappoint- 
ment, like a child, threw up her hands, turned, and ran 
back to her work. 

At Umatilla, being forced again to "make option which 
of two," we reluctantly turned back, leaving the beautiful 
Walla Walla region unvisited, for the sake of seeing Puget 
Sound. The Walla Walla region is said to be the finest 
stretch of wheat country in the world. Lava slag, when 
decomposed, makes the richest of soil, — deep and seem- 
ingly of inexhaustible fertilitj'. A failure of harvests is 
said never to have been known in that country ; the aver- 
age yield of wheat is thirty-five to forty bushels an acre, 
and oats have yielded a hundred bushels. Apples and 
peaches thrive, and are of a superior quality. The country 
is well watered, and has fine rolling plateaus from fifteen 
hundred to three thousand feet high, giving a climate 
neither too cold in winter nor too hot in summer, and of a 
bracing quality not found nearer the sea. Hearing all the 
unquestionable tributes to the beamy and value of this 
Walla Walla region, I could not but recall some of Chief 
Joseph's pleas that a small share of it should be left in 
the possession of those who once owned it all. 

From our pilot, on the way down, I heard an Indian 
story, too touching to be forgotten, though too long to tell 
here except in briefest outline. As we were passing a 
little village, half under water, he exclaimed, looking ear- 
nestly at a small building to whose window-sills the water 
nearly reached : " Well, I declare, Lucy 's been driven out 
of her house this time. I was wondering why I did n't 
see her handkerchief a-waving. She alwa}'s waves to me 
when I go by." Then he told me Lucy's story. 

She was a California Indian, probably of the Tulares, 
and migrated to Oregon w T ith her family thirty years ago. 
She was then a young girl, and said to be the handsomest 
squaw ever seen in Oregon. In those days white men in 
wildernesses thought it small shame, if any, to take Indian 
women to live with them as wives, and Lucy was much 
sought and wooed. But she seems to have had uncommon 
virtue or coldness, for she resisted all such approaches for 
a Ions: time. 



144 CALIFORNIA AND OREGON. 

Finally, a man named Pomeroy appeared ; and, as Lucy 
said afterward, as soon as she looked at him, she knew he 
was her "turn turn man," and she must go with him. He 
had a small sloop, and Lucy became its mate. The} r two 
alone ran it for several t years up and down the river. He 
established a little trading-post, and Lucy always took 
charge of that when he went to buy goods. When gold 
was discovered at Ringgold Bar, Lucy went there, worked 
with a rocker like a man, and washed out hundreds of dol- 
lars' worth of gold, all which she gave to Pomeroy. With 
it he built a fine schooner and enlarged his business, the 
faithful Lucy working always at his side and bidding. At 
last, after eight or ten years, he grew weaiy of her and of 
the country, and made up his mind to go to California. 
But he had not the heart to tell Luc}' he meant to leave 
her. The pilot who told me this story was at that time 
captain of a schooner on the river. Pomero}- came to him 
one daj', and asked him to move Lnc}^ and her effects down 
to Columbus. He said he had told her that she must go and 
live there with her relatives, while he went to California 
and looked about, and then he would send for her. The 
poor creature, who had no idea of treachery, came on 
board cheerfully and willingly, and he set her off at Colum- 
bus. This was in the early spring. Week after week, 
month after month, whenever his schooner stopped there, 
Lucy was on the shore, asking if he had heard from 
Pomeroy. For a long time, he said, he could n't bear to 
tell her. At last he did ; but she would not believe him. 
Winter came on. She had got a few boards together and 
built herself a sort of hut, near a house where lived an 
eccentric old bachelor, who finally took compassion on her, 
and to save her from freezing let her come into his shanty 
to sleep. He was a mysterious old man, a recluse, with a 
morbid aversion to women ; and at the outset it was a great 
struggle for him to let even an Indian woman cross his 
threshold. But little \)y little Lucy won her wa}* : first 
she washed the dishes ; then she would timidly help at the 
cooking. Faithful, patient, unpresuming, at last she grew 
to be really the old man's housekeeper as well as servant. 
He lost his health, and became blind. Lucy took care of 
him till he died, and followed him to the grave, his onl}' 
mourner, — the only human being*in the country with whom 



CHANCE DAYS IN OREGON. 145 

he had any tie. He left her his little house and a few- 
hundred dollars, — all he had ; and there she is still, alone, 
making out to live by doing whatever work she can find in 
the neighborhood. Everybody respects her ; she is known 
as "Lucy" up and down the river. "I did my best to 
hire her to come and keep house for my wife, last 3*ear," 
said the pilot. "I'd rather have her for nurse or cook 
than any white woman in Oregon. But she would n't 
come. I don't know as she 's done looking for Pomeroy 
to come back yet, and she 's going to stay just where he 
left her. She never misses a time, waving to me, when 
she knows what boat I 'm on ; and there is n't much going 
on on the river she don't know." 

It was dusk when the pilot finished telling Lucy's story. 
We were shooting along through wild passages of water 
called Hell Gate, just above the Dalles. In the dim light 
the basaltic columnar cliffs looked like grooved ebony. 
One of the pinnacles has a strange resemblance to the fig- 
ure of an Indian. It is called the Chief, and the semblance 
is startling, — a colossal figure, with a plume-crowned 
head, turned as if gazing backward over the shoulder ; the 
attitude stately, the drapery graceful, and the whole ex- 
pression one of profound and dignified sorrow. It seemed 
a strangely fitting emphasis to the story of the faithful In- 
dian woman. 

It was near midnight when we passed the Dalles. Our 
train was late, and dashed on at its swiftest. Fitful light 
came from a wisp of a new moon and one star ; they 
seemed tossing in a tumultuous sea of dark clouds. In 
this glimmering darkness the lava walls and ridges stood 
up, inky black; the foaming water looked like molten 
steel, the whole region more ghastly and terrible than 
before. 

There is a village of three thousand inhabitants at the 
Dalles. The houses are set among lava hillocks and 
ridges. The fields seemed bubbled with lava, their black- 
ened surfaces stippled in with yellow and brown. High 
up above are wheat-fields in clearings, reaching to the sk}-- 
line of the hills. Great slopes of crumbling and disinte- 
grating lava rock spread superb purple and slate colors 
between the greens of forests and wheat-fields. It is one 
of the memorable pictures on the Columbia. 

10 



146 CALIFORNIA AND OREGON 

To go both up and down a river is a good deal like 
spending a summer and a winter in a place, so great differ- 
ence does it make when right hand and left shift sides, and 
everything is seen from a new stand-point. 

The Columbia River scenery is taken at its best going 
up, especially the gradual crescendo of the Cascade Moun- 
tain region, which is far tamer entered from above. But 
we had a compensation in the clearer sky and lifted clouds, 
which gave us the more distant snow-peaks in all their 
glory ; and our run down from the Dalles to Portland was 
the best day of our three on the river. Our steamer was 
steered by hydraulic pressure ; and it was a wonderful 
thing to sit in the pilot-house and see the slight touch of a 
finger on the shining lever sway the great boat in a sec- 
ond. A baby's hand is strong enough to steer the largest 
steamboat b} r this instrument. It could turn the boat, the 
captain said, in a maelstrom, where four men together 
could not budge the rudder-wheel. 

The hiskny of the Columbia River navigation would 
make b % y itself an interesting chapter. It dates back to 
1792, when a Boston ship and a Boston captain first sailed 
up the river. A curious bit of history in regard to that 
ship is to be found in the archives of the old Spanish gov- 
ernment in California. Whenever a ro}*al decree was is- 
sued in Madrid in regard to the Indies or New Spain, a 
cop3 T of it was sent to every viceroy in the Spanish Domin- 
ions ; he communicated it to his next subordinate, who in 
turn sent it to all the governors, and so on, till the decree 
reached every corner of the king's provinces. In 1789 
there was sent from Madrid, by ship to Mexico, and thence 
by courier to California, and b} r Fages, the California gov- 
ernor, to every port in California, the following order : — 

"Whenever there may arrive at the port of San Francisco 
a ship named the 'Columbia,' said to belong to General Wash- 
ington of the American States, commanded by John Kendrick, 
which sailed from Boston in 1787, bound on a voyage of dis- 
covery to the Russian settlements on the northern coast of the 
peninsula, you will cause said vessel to be examined with cau- 
tion and delicacy, using for this purpose a small boat which 
you have in your possession." 

Two months after this order was promulgated in the 
Santa Barbara presidio, Captain Gray, of the ship " Wash- 



CHANCE DAYS IN OREGON. 147 

ington," and Captain Kendrick of the ship "Columbia," 
changed ships in Wickmanish harbor. Captain Gray took 
the " Columbia" to China, and did not sail into San Fran- 
cisco harbor at all, whereby he escaped being " examined 
with caution and delicac} T " 03- the small boat in possession 
of the San Francisco garrison. Not till the 11th of May, 
1792, did he return and sail up the Columbia River, then 
called the Oregon. He renamed it, for his ship, " Colum- 
bia's River ; " but the possessive was soon dropped. 

When one looks at the crowded rows of steamboats at 
the Portland wharves now, it is hard to realize that it is 
only thirty-two years since the first one was launched 
there. Two were built and launched in one year, the 
" Columbia" and the " Lot Whitcomb." The ; < Lot Whit- 
comb " was launched on Christmas Da} r ; there were three 
days' feasting and dancing, and people gathered from all 
parts of the Territory to celebrate the occasion. 

It is also hard to realize, when standing on the Portland 
wharves, that it is less than fifty years since there were 
angry discussions in the United States Congress as to 
whether or not it were worth while to obtain Oregon as a 
possession, and in the Eastern States manuals were being 
freely distributed, bearing such titles as this : "A general 
circular to all persons of good character wishing to emi- 
grate to the Oregon Territory." Even those statesmen who 
were most earnest in favor of the securing of Oregon did 
not perceive the true nature of its value. One of Benton's 
most enthusiastic predictions was that an " emporium of 
Asiatic commerce " would be situated at the mouth of the 
Columbia, and that " a stream of Asiatic trade would pour 
into the vallev- of the Mississippi through the channel of 
Oregon." But the future of Oregon and Washington rests 
not on anj' transmission of the riches of other countries, 
however important an element in their prospernVv that may 
ultimately become. Their true riches are their own and 
inalienable. They are to be among the great feeders of 
the, earth. Gold and silver values are unsteady and capri- 
cious ; intrigues can overthrow them ; markets can be 
glutted, and mines fail. But bread the nations of the 
earth must have. The breacl-yielder controls the situation 
always. Given a soil which can grow wheat year after 
year with no apparent fatigue or exhaustion, a climate 



148 CALIFORNIA AND OREGON 

where rains never fail and seed-time and harvest are uni- 
formly certain, and conditions are created under which the 
future success and wealth of a country ma}' be predicted 
just as surely as the movements of the planets in the 
heavens. 

There are three great vallej's in western Oregon, — 
the Willamette, the Umpqua, and the Rogue River. The 
Willamette is the largest, being sixty miles long by one 
hundred and fifty wide. The Umpqua and Rogue River 
together contain over a million of acres. These valleys are 
natural gardens ; fertile to luxuriance, and watered by all 
the westward drainage of the great Cascade Range, the 
Andes of North America, a continuation of the Sierra Ne- 
vada. The Coast Range Mountains lie west of these val- 
leys, breaking, but not shutting out, the influence of the 
sea air and fogs. This vallej' region between these two 
ranges contains less than a third of the area of Washing- 
ton and Oregon. The country east of the Cascade Moun- 
tains is no less fertile, but has a drier climate, colder 
winters, and hotter summers. Its elevation is from two to 
four thousand feet, — probably the very best elevations for 
health. A comparison of statistics of yearly death-rates 
cannot be made with absolute fairness between old and 
thick-settled and new and sparsely settled countries. Al- 
lowance must be made for the probably superior health and 
strength of the men and women who have had the youth 
and energy to go forward as pioneers. Rut, making all 
due allowance for these, there still remains difference 
enough to startle one between the death-rates in some of 
the Atlantic States and in these infant empires of the New 
Northwest. The yearly death-rate in Massachusetts is one 
out of fifty-seven ; in Vermont one out of ninety-seven ; in 
Oregon one out of one hundred and seventj'-two ; and in 
Washington Territory one out of two hundred and twenty- 
eight. 

As we glided slowty to anchorage in Portland harbor, 
five dazzling snow-white peaks were in sight on the hori- 
zon, — Mount Hood, of peerless shape, strong as if it were 
a bulwark of the very heavens themselves, }*et graceful 
and sharp-cut as Egypt's pyramids ; St. Helen's, a little 
lower, yet looking higher, with the marvellous curves of 
its slender shining cone, bent on and seemingly into the 



CHANCE DAYS IN OREGON. 149 

sky, like an intaglio of ice cut in the bine ; miles away, in 
the farthest north and east horizons, Mounts Tacoma and 
Adams and Baker, all gleaming white, and all seeming 
to uphold the skies. 

These eternal, unalterable snow-peaks will be as eternal 
and unalterable factors in the histoiy of the country as in 
its beauty to the eye. Their value will not come under 
any head of things reckonable by census, statistics, or 
computation, but it will be none the less real for that : it will 
be an element in the nature and character of every man 
and woman born within sight of the radiant splendor ; and 
it will be strange if it does not ultimately develop, in the 
empire of this New Northwest, a local patriotism and pas- 
sionate lo\ r alt3^ to soil as strong and lasting as that which 
has made generations of Swiss mountaineers ready to 
brave death for a sight of their mountains. 



II. 

SCOTLAND AND ENGLAND. 



II. 

SCOTLAND AND ENGLAND. 

A BURNS PILGRIMAGE. 

A shining-beached crescent of country facing to the 
sunset, and rising higher and higher to the east till it 
becomes mountain, is the county of A}Tshire, fair and 
famous among the southern Scotch highlands. To a sixt}-- 
mile measure by air, between its north and south promon- 
tories, it stretches a curving coast of ninet}' ; and when 
Robert Burns strolled over its breezy uplands, he saw al- 
ways beautiful and mysterious silver lines of land thrusting 
themselves out into the mists of the sea, pointing to far-off 
island peaks, seeming sometimes to bridge and sometimes 
to wall vistas ending only in sky. These lines are as 
beautiful, elusive, and luring now as then, and in the in- 
alienable loyalty of nature bear testimony to-day to their 
lover. 

This is the greatest crown of the hero and the poet. 
Other great men hold fame by failing records which moth 
and fire clestro}\ The places that knew them know 
them no more when they are dead. Marble and canvas 
and parchment league in vain to keep green the memory 
of him who did not love and consecrate by his life-blood, 
in fight or in song, the soil where he trod. But for him 
who has done this, — who fought well, sang well, — the 
morning cloud, and the wild rose, and broken blades of 
grass under men's feet, become immortal witnesses ; so 
imperishable, after all, are what we are in the habit of 
calling the " perishable things of this earth." 

More than two hundred years ago, when the followers 
and holders of the different baronies of Ayrshire compared 



154 SCOTLAND AND ENGLAND. 

respective dignities and values, they made a proverb which 
ran : — 

" Carrick for a man ; Kyle for a coo ; 
Cunningham for butter and cheese ; Galloway for woo." 

Before the nineteenth century set in, the proverb should 
have been changed : for Kyle is the land through which 
"Bonnie Doon " and Irvine Water run, and there has 
been never a man in all Carrick of whom Carrick can be 
proud as is Kyle of Robert Burns. It has been said that 
a copy of his poems lies on every Scotch cottager's shelf, 
\>y the side of the Bible. This is probably not very far 
from the truth. Certain it is, that in the villages where he 
dwelt there seems to be no man, no child, who does not 
apparently know ever} r detail of the life he lived there, 
nearly a hundred years ago. 

" Will ye be drivin' over to Tarbolton in the morning? " 
said the pretty }'oung vice-landlady of the King's Arms at 
Ayr, when I wrote my name in her visitors' book late one 
Saturday night. 

" What made you think of that? " I asked, amused. 

" And did ye not come on account o' Burns?" she re- 
plied. " There's been a manj^ from your countiy here by 
reason of him this summer. I think you love him in 
America a'most as well as we do oursel's. It's vary sel- 
dom the English come to see anythiir' aboot him. They 've 
so man} T poets o' their own, I suppose, is the reason o' 
their not thinkin' more o' Burns." 

All that there was unflattering in this speech I forgave 
b}' reason of the girl's sweet low voice, pretty gray eyes, 
and gentle, refined hospitality. She might have been the 
daughter of some country gentleman, welcoming a guest 
to the house ; and she took as much interest in making 
all the arrangements for m} r drive to Tarbolton the next 
morning as if it had been a pleasure excursion for herself. 
It is but a dull life she leads, helping her widowed mother 
keep the King's Arms, — dull, and unprofitable too, I fear ; 
for it takes four men-servants and seven women to keep 
up the house, and I saw no s3 T mptom of an}' coming or go- 
ing of customers in it. A stillness as of a church on week- 
days reigned throughout the establishment. " At the 
races and when the veomanrv come." she said, there was 



A BURNS PILGRIMAGE. 155 

something to do; but "in the winter nothing, except at 
the times of the count}* balls. You know, ma'am, we've 
man} r county families here," she remarked with gentle 
pride, " and they all stop with us." 

There is a compensation to the lower orders of a society 
where rank and castes are fixed, which does not readily 
occur at first sight to the democratic mind naturally re- 
belling against such defined distinctions. It is very much 
to be questioned whether, in a republic, the people who 
find themselves temporarily lower down in the social scale 
than the}' like to be or expect to sta}*, feel, in their con- 
sciousness of the possibility of rising, half so much pride 
or satisfying pleasure as do the lower classes in Eng- 
land, for instance, in their relations with those whom they 
serve, whose dignity they seem to share by ministering 
to it. 

The way from Ayr to Tarbolton must be greatly changed 
since the da}* when the sorrowful Burns family trod it, go- 
ing from the Mount Oliphant farm to that of Lochlea. 
Now it is for miles a smooth road, on which horses' hoofs 
ring merrily, and neat little stone houses, with pretty 
yards, line it on both sides for some distance. The ground 
rises almost immediately, so that the dwellers in these 
little suburban houses get fine off-looks seaward and a 
wholesome breeze in at their windows. The houses are 
built joined by twos, with a yard in common. The}" have 
three rooms besides the kitchen, and they rent for twenty- 
five pounds a 3'ear ; so no industrious man of Ayr need be 
badly lodged. Where the houses leave off, hedges begin, 
— thorn and beech, untrimmed and luxuriant, with great 
outbursts of white hone}'suckle and sweet-brier at inter- 
vals. As far as the eye could see were waving fields of 
wheat, oats, and " iye-grass," which last being just ripe 
was of a glorious red color. The wheat-fields were rich 
and full, sixtj- bushels to the acre. Oats, which do not 
take so kindly to the soil and air, produce sometimes only 
forty-eight. 

Burns was but sixteen when his father moved from 
Mount Oliphant to the Lochlea farm, in the parish of Tar- 
bolton. It was in Tarbolton that he first went to dancing- 
school, joined the Freemasons, and organized the club 
which, no doubt, cost him dear, "The Bachelors of Tar- 



156 SCOTLAND AND ENGLAND. 

bolton." In the beginning this club consisted of only five 
members besides Burns and his brother ; afterward it 
was enlarged to sixteen. Burns drew up the rules ; and 
the last one — the tenth — is worth remembering, as an 
unconscious defining on his part of his ideal of human 
life : — 

" Every man proper for a member of this society must have a 
friendly, honest, open heart, above everything dirty or mean, 
and must be a professed lover of one or more of the sex. The 
proper person for this society is a cheerful, honest-hearted lad, 
who, if he has a friend that is true, and a mistress that is kind, 
and as much wealth as genteelly to make both ends meet, is just 
as happy as this world can make him." 

Walking to-day through the narrow streets of Tarbol- 
ton, it is wellnigh impossible to conceive of such rollick- 
ing good cheer having made abiding-place there. It is a 
close, packed town, the houses of stone or white plaster, — 
many of them low, squalid, with thatched roofs and walls 
awry ; those that are not squalid are grim. The streets 
are winding and tangled ; the people look poor and dull. 
As I drove up to the "Crown Inn," the place where 
the Tarbolton Freemasons meet now, and where some 
of the relics of Burns's Freemason da}'s are kept, the 
' ' first bells " were ringing in the belfry of the old church 
opposite, and the landlord of the inn replied with a look 
of great embarrassment to my request to see the Burns 
relics, — 

"It's the Sabbath, mem." 

Then he stood still, scratching his head for a few mo- 
ments, and then set off, at full run, down the street without 
another word. 

"He's gone to the head Mason," explained the land- 
lady. " It takes three to open the chest. I think ye '11 
na see it the day." And she turned on her heel with a 
frown and left me. 

" They make much account o' the Sabbath in this coun- 
try," said my driver. " Another day ye'd do better." 

Thinking of Burns's lines to the " Unco Guid," I 
strolled over into the churchyard opposite, to await the 
landlord's return. The bell-ringer had come down, and 
followed me curiously about among the graves. One very 



A BURNS PILGRIMAGE. 157 

old stone had carved upon it two high-top boots ; under 
these, two low shoes ; below these, two kneeling figures, a 
man and a woman, cut in high relief; no inscription of 
any sort. 

" What can it mean?" I asked. 

The bell-ringer could not tell ; it was so old nobody 
knew an} T thing about it. His mother, now ninety years of 
age, remembered seeing it when she was a child, and it 
looked just as old then as now. 

'* There 's a man} r strange things in this grave} r ard," 
said he ; and then he led me to a corner where, enclosed 
by swinging chains and stone posts, was a carefully kept 
square of green turf, on which lay a granite slab. " Eveiy 
year comes the money to pay for keeping that grass 
green," he said, " and no name to it. It's been going on 
that wa} T for fifty 3-ears." 

The stone-wall around the graveyard was dilapidated, 
and in parts was falling down. 

" I suppose this old wall was here in Burns' s time," I 
said. 

"Ay, } T es," said the bell-ringer ; and pointing to a low, 
thatched cottage just outside it, " and } T on shop — many 's 
the time he 's been in it play in' his tricks." 

The landlord of the inn now came running up, with pro- 
fuse apologies for the ill success of his mission. He had 
been to the head Mason, hoping he would come over and 
assist in the opening of the chest, in which were kept a 
Mason's apron worn by Burns, some jewels of his, and 
a book of minutes kept by him. But " bein' 's it's the 
Sabbath," and "he's sick in bed," and it was " against 
the rules to open the regalia chest unless three Masons 
were present," the kindly landlord, piling up reason 
after reason, irrespective of their consistency with each 
other, went on to explain that it would be impossible ; 
but I might see the chair in which Burns always sat. 
This was a huge oaken chair, black with age, and fur- 
rowed with names cut deep in the wood. It was shaped 
and proportioned like a child's high-chair, and had pre- 
cisely such a rest for the feet as is put on children's 
high- chairs. To this day the Grand Mason sits in it at 
their meetings, and will so long as the St. James Lodge 
exists. 



158 SCOTLAND AND ENGLAND. 

4 'They've been offered hundreds of pounds for that 
chair, mem, plain as it is. You'd not think it; but 
there's" no money 'd buy it from the lodge," said the 
landlord. 

The old club-house where the jolly "Bachelors of Tar- 
bolton " met in Burns's day is a low, two-roomed, thatched 
cottage, half in ruins. The room where the bachelors 
smoked, drank, and sang is now little more than a cellar 
filled with rubbish and filth, — nothing left but the old fire- 
place to show that it was ever inhabited. In the other 
half of the cottage lives a laborer's family, — father, 
mother, and a young child : their one room, with its bed 
built into the wall, and their few clelf dishes on the dresser, 
is probably much like the room in which Burns first opened 
his wondrous eyes. The man was lying on the floor pla}'- 
ing with his baby. At the name of Burns, he sprang up 
with a heart}' " Ay, weel," and ran out in his blue-stocking 
feet to show me the cellar, of which, it was plainly to be 
seen, he was far prouder than of his more comfortable 
side of the house. The name by which the inn was called 
in Burns's day he did not know. But " He 's a Mason over 
there ; he '11 know," he cried ; and before I could prevent 
him, he had darted, still shoeless, across the road, and 
asked the question of a yet poorer laborer, who was taking 
his Sunday on his door-sill with two bairns between his 
knees. He had heard, but had " forgotten." " Fej'ther'll 
know," said the wife, coming forward with the third bairn, 
a hairy, in her arms. "I'll rin an' ask feyther." The old 
man tottered out, and gazed with a vacant, feeble look at 
me, while he replied impatiently to his daughter: "Man- 
son's Inn, 't was called ; ye 've heard it times eneuch." 

" I dare sa} T you always drink Burns's health at the lodge 
when you meet," I said to the laborer. 

" A}*, ay, his health 's a} T dronkit," he said, with a coarse 
laugh, " weel dronkit." 

A few rods to the east, and down the veiy road Burns 
was wont to come and go between Lochlea and Tarbolton, 
still stands "Willie's mill," — cottage and mill and shed 
and barn, all in one low, long, oddly joined (or jointed) 
building of irregular heights, like a telescope pulled out to 
its full length ; a little brook and a bit of gay garden in 
front. In the winter the mill goes by water from a lake 



A BURNS PILGRIMAGE. 159 

near by ; in the summer by steam, — a great change since 
the night when Burns went 

" Todlin' down on Willie's mill/' 

and though he thought he 

" Was na fou, but just had plenty/' 

could not for the life of him make out to count the moon's 
horns. 

" To count her horns, wi' a' my power, 
I set mysel' ; 
But whether she had three or four 
I could na tell." 

To go b} T road from Tarbolton to Lochlea farm is to go 
around three sides of a square, east, north, and then west 
again. Certain it is that Burns never took so many super- 
fluous steps to do it ; and as I drove along I found absorb- 
ing interest in looking at the little cluster of farm buildings 
beyond the fields, and wondering where the light-footed 
bo} T used to "cut across" for his nightlv frolics. There 
is nothing left at Lochlea now of him or his ; nothing save 
a worn lintel of the old barn. The buildings are all new ; 
and there is a look of thrift and comfort about the place, 
quite unlike the face it must have worn in 1784. The 
house stands on a rising knoll, and from the windows 
looking westward and seaward there must be a fine horizon 
and headlands to be seen at sunset. Nobody was at home 
on this da} r except a barefooted servant-girl, who was 
keeping the house while the family were at church. She 
came to the door with an expression of almost alarm, at 
the unwonted apparition of a carriage driving down the 
lane on Sunday, and a stranger coming in the name of a 
man dead so long ago. She evidently knew nothing of 
Burns except that, for some reason connected with him, 
the old lintel was kept and shown. She was impatient of 
the interruption of her Sabbath, and all the while she was 
speaking kept her finger in her book — "Footprints, of 
Jesus " — at the place where she had been reading, and 
glanced at it continually, as if it were an amulet which 
could keep her from harm through the worldly interlude 
into which she had been forced. 



160 SCOTLAND AND ENGLAND. 

"It's a pity ye came on the Sabba-day," remarked the 
driver again, as we drove away from Lochlea. "The 
country people 'ull not speak on the Sabbath." It would 
have been useless to try to explain to him that the specta- 
cle of this Scottish " Sabba-day" was of itself of almost 
as much interest as the sight of the fields in which Robert 
Burns had walked and worked. 

The farm of Mossgiel, which was Burns's next home 
after Lochlea, is about three miles from Tarbolton, and 
only one from Mauchline. Burns and his brother Gilbert 
had become tenants of it a few months before their father's 
death in 1784. It was stocked by the joint savings of the 
whole family ; and each member of the family was allowed 
fair rates of wages for all labor performed on it. The al- 
lowance to Gilbert and to Robert was seven pounds a 
3'ear each, and it is said that during the four years that 
Robert lived there, his expenses never exceeded this 
pittance. 

To Mossgiel he came with new resolutions. He had 
already reaped some bitter harvests from the wild oats 
sown during the seven } T ears at Lochlea. He was no 
longer a boy. He says of himself at this time, — 

" I entered on Mossgiel with a full resolution, ' Come, 
go ; I will be wise.' " 

Driving up the long, straight road which leads from the 
highway to the hawthorn fortress in which the Mossgiel 
farm buildings stand, one recalls these words, and fancies 
the brave young fellow striding up the field, full of new 
hope and determination. The hawthorn hedge to-day is 
much higher than a man's head, and completely screens 
from the road the farm-house and the outbuildings behind 
it. The present tenants have lived on the farm forty 
years, the first twenty in the same house which stood there 
when Robert and Gilbert Burns pledged themselves to pay 
one hundred and twenty pounds a j^ear for the farm. 
When the house was rebuilt, twenty years ago, the old 
walls were used in part, and the windows were left in 
the same places ; but, instead of the low, sloping-roofed, 
garret-like rooms upstairs, where Burns used to sleep and 
write, are now comfortable chambers of modern fashion. 

' ' Were you not sorry to have the old house pulled 
down?" I said to the comety, aged farm- wife. 



A BURNS PILGRIMAGE. 161 

" 'Deed, then, I was very prood," she replied ; " it had 
na 'coomodation, and the thatch took in the rain an' all 
that was vile." 

In the best room of the house hung two autograph let- 
ters of Burns's plainly framed : one, his letter to the lass 

of , asking her permission to print the poem he had 

addressed to her ; the other, the original cop}' of the 
poem. These were "presented to the house by the 
brother of the lady," the woman said, and they had " a 
great value now." But when she first came to this part 
of the country she was "vary soorpreezed" to find the 
great esteem in which Burns's poetry was held. In the 
North, where she had lived, he was " na thocht weel of." 
Her father had never permitted a cop}' of his poems to be 
brought inside his doors, and had forbidden his children 
to read a word of them. ' ' He thocht them too rough for 
us to read." It was not until she was a woman grown, 
and living in her husband's house, that she had ever ven- 
tured to disobey this parental command, and she did 
not now herself think they were ' ' fitted for the reading 
of young pairsons." "There was much more discreet 
writin's," she said severely ; an opinion which there was 
no gainsaying. 

There is a broader horizon to be seen, looking westward 
from the fields of Mossgiel, than from those of Lochlea ; 
the lands are higher and nobler of contour. Superb trees, 
which must have been superb a century ago, stand to 
right and left of the house, — beeches, ashes, oaks, and 
planes. The fields which are in sight from the house are 
now all grass-grown. I have heard that twenty years ago, 
it was confidently told in which field Burns, ploughing late 
in the autumn, broke into the little nest of the 

" Wee sleekit, cow'rin', tim'rous beastie," 

whom every song-lover has known and pitied from that 
day to this, and whose misfortunes have answered ever 
since for a mint of reassuring comparison to all of us, 
remembering that "the best-laid schemes o' mice an' 
men" must "gang aft aglee ; " and the other field, also 
near by, where grew that mountain daisy, 

" Wee, modest, crimson-tipped flower," 
11 



162 SCOTLAND AND ENGLAND. 

whose name is immortal in our hearts as that of Burns. 
This farm-wife, however, knew nothing about them. The 
stern air of the north country in which she had been 
reared still chilled somewhat her thoughts of Burns and 
her interest in his inalienable bond on the fields of her 
farm. 

It is but a mile from Mossgiel's gate to Mauchline, the 
town of "bonnie Jean" and Nansie Tinnoch and Gavin 
Hamilton. Surely a strange-assorted trio to be comrades 
of one man. Their houses are still standing : Jean's a 
tumble-clown thatched cottage, looking out of place enough 
between the smart, new houses built on either side of it ; 
Gavin Hamilton's, a dark, picturesque stone house, joined 
to the ruins of Mauchline Castle ; and Nansie Tinnoclvs, 
a black and dilapidated hovel, into which it takes courage 
to go. It stands snugged up against the wall of the old 
graveyard, part below it and part above it, — a situation 
as unwholesome as horrible ; a door at the head of the 
narrow stairwa} T opening out into the graveyard itself, 
and the slanting old stones leering in at the smoky win- 
dows b} r crowds. In the da}~s when all the ''country 
side " met at the open-air services in this churchyard, 

" Some thinkin' on their sins, an' some on their elaes," 

no doubt ]Nanc3 T Tinnoch's was a lighter, whiter, cheerier 
place than now ; else the ' ' Jolly Beggars " would never 
have gone there to tipple. 

It was the nooning between services when I reached 
Mauchline, and church-goers from a distance were taking 
their beer and crackers decorously in the parlor of the inn. 
As the intermission was only three quarters of an hour 
long, this much of involuntary dissipation was plainly 
forced on them ; but the}' did not abuse it, I can testify. 
They partook of it as of a passover : 3'oung men and 
maidens as sober and silent as if they had been doing sol- 
emn penance for sins, as indeed, from one point of view, 
it might perhaps be truly said that they were. 

By dint of some difficult advances I drew one or two of 
them into conversation about the Mossgiel farm and the 
disappearance of the old relics of Burns's life in that re- 
gion. It was a great pity, I said, that the Mossgiel house 
had to be taken down. 



A BURNS PILGRIMAGE. 163 

" 'Deed, then, it was na such thing," spoke up an elderly 
man. "It was na moor than a wreck, an' I'm the mon 
who did it." 

He was the landlord of the farm, it appeared. He 
seemed much amused at hearing of the farm-wife's dis- 
approval of Burns's verses, and of her father's prohibition 
of them. 

" He was a heepocritical auld Radical, if ye knows him," 
he said angrily. "I hope we'll never have ony worse 
readin' in our country than Robert Bur-r-r-ns." The pro- 
longation of the "r" in the Scotch way of saying "Burns" 
is something that cannot be typographically represented. 
It is hardly a rolling of the " r," nor a multiplication of 
it ; but it takes up a great deal more time and room than 
any one " r" ought to. 

After the landlady had shown to me the big hall where 
the Freemasons meet, " the Burns' Mother Lodge," and 
the chest which used to hold the regalia at Tarbolton in 
Burns's day, and the little bedroom in which Stedman and 
Hawthorne had slept, — coming also to look at Burns's 
fields, — she told me in a mysterious whisper that there 
was a nephew of Burns's in the kitchen, who would like 
to see me, if I would like to see him. "A nephew of 
Burns's!" I exclaimed. " Weel, not exactlv," she ex- 
plained, "but he's a grand-nephew of Burns's wife; she 
thet was Jean, ye know," with a deprecating nod and 
lowering of the e^yelid. So fast is the clutch of a Scotch 
neighborhood on its traditions of offended virtue, even to- 
day poor Jean cannot be mentioned by a landlady in her 
native town without a small stone cast backward at her. 

Jean's grand-nephew proved to be a middle-aged man ; 
not " ower weel-to-do," the landlady said. He had tried 
his hand at doctoring both in Scotland and America, — a 
rolling stone evidently, with too much of the old fiery 
blood of his race in his veins for quiet and decorous pros- 
perity. He, too, seemed only half willing to speak of 
poor "Jean," — his kinswoman: but he led me to the 
cottage where she had lived, and pointed out the window 
from which she was said to have leaned out many a night 
listening to the songs of her lover when he sauntered 
across from the Whiteford Arms, Johnny Pigeon's house, 
just opposite, " not fou, but having had plenty" to make 



164 SCOTLAND AND ENGLAND. 

him merry and affectionate. Johnny Pigeon's is a " co- 
operative store " now ; and new buildings have altered the 
line of the street so that "Rob Mossgiel" would lose his 
way there to-day. 

The room in which Burns and his " bonnie Jean " were 
at last married in Gavin Hamilton's house, by Hamilton 
himself, is still shown to visitors. This room I had a 
greater desire to see than any other spot in Mauchline. 
"We can but try," said the grand-nephew; "but it's a 
small chance of seeing it the Sabba." 

The sole tenant of this house now is the widow of a son 
of Gavin Hamilton's. Old, blind, and nearly helpless, she 
lives there alone with one family servant, nearly as old as 
herself, but hale, heart}', and ros}' as only an old Scotch- 
woman can be. This servant opened the door for us, her 
cap, calico gown, and white apron all alike bristling with 
starch, religion, and pride of family. Her mistress would 
not allow the room to be shown on the Sabbath, she said. 
Imploringly it was explained to her that no other day had 
been possible, and that I had come "all the way from 
America." 

"Ye did na do weel to tak the Sabbath," was her only 
replv, as she turned on her heel to go with trie fruitless 
appeal to her mistress. Returning, she said curtly, — 

" She winna shew it on the Sabbath." 

At this crisis my companion, who had kept in the back- 
ground, stepped forward with, — 

" You don't know me, Elspie, do ye?" 

" No, sir," she said stiffly, bracing herself up mentally 
against any further heathenish entreaties. 

' ' What, not know ? " repeating his name in full. 

Presto ! as if changed by a magician's trick, the stiff, 
starched, religious, haughty family retainer disappeared, 
and there stood, in the same cap, gown, and apron, a lim- 
ber, rollicking, wellnigh improper old woman, who poked 
the grand-nephew in the ribs, clapped him on the shoulder, 
chuckling, ejaculating, questioning, wondering, laughing, 
all in a breath. Reminiscence on reminiscence followed 
between them. 

' ' An' do ye mind Barry, too ? " she asked. (This was an 
old man-servant of the house.) " An' many 's the quirrel, 
an' many 's the gree we had." 



A BURNS PILGRIMAGE. 165 

Barry was dead. Dead also was the beautiful girl whom 
my companion remembered well, — dead of a broken heart 
before she was eighteen years of age. Forbidden to marry 
her lover, she had drooped and pined. He went to India 
and died. It was in a December the news of his death 
came, just at Christmas time, and in the next September 
she followed him. 

" Ay, but she was a bonnie lass," said Elspie, the tears 
rolling down her face. 

"I dare say she [nodding his head toward the house] 
— I dare say she 's shed many a salt tear over it ; but nae- 
body 'ill ever know she repentit," quoth the grand-nephew. 

" Ay, ay," said Elspie. " There 's a wee bit closet in 
every hoos." 

" 'Twas in that room she died," pointing up to a small 
ivy-shaded window. " I closed her eyes wi' my hands. 
She 's never spoken of. She was a bonnie lass." 

The picture of this desolate old woman, sitting there 
alone in her house, helpless, blind, waiting for death to 
come and take her to meet that daughter whose young 
heart was broken by her cruel will, seemed to shadow the 
very sunshine on the greensward in the court. The broken 
arches and crumbling walls of the old stone abbe}' ruins 
seemed, in their ivy mantles, warmly, joyously venerable 
by contrast with the silent, ruined, stony old human heart 
still beating in the house they joined. 

In spite of niy protestations, the grand-nephew urged 
Elspie to show us the room. She evidently now longed to 
do it ; but, casting a fearful glance over her shoulder, said : 
" I daur na ! I daur na ! I could na open the door that 
she 'd na hear 't." And she seemed much relieved when I 
made haste to assure her that on no account would I go 
into the room without her mistress's permission. So we 
came away, leaving her gazing regretfully after us, with 
her hand shading her eyes from the sun. 

Going back from Mauchline to Ayr, I took another 
road, farther to the south than the one leading through 
Tarbolton, and much more beautiful, with superb beech- 
trees meeting overhead, and gentlemen's country-seats, 
with great parks, on either hand. 

On this road is Montgomerie Castle, walled in by grand 
woods, which Burns knew so well. 



166 SCOTLAND AND ENGLAND. 

" Ye banks and braes and streams around 

The castle o' Montgomery, 
Green be your woods and fair your flowers, 

Your waters never drumlie ! 
There simmer first unfauld her robes, 

And there the langest tarry, 
For there I took the last fareweel 

O' my sweet Highland Mary." 

Sitting in the sun, on a bench outside the gate-house, 
with his little granddaughter on his lap, was the white- 
haired gate-keeper. As the horses' heads turned toward 
the gate, he arose slowly, without a change of muscle, and 
set down the child, who accepted her altered situation also 
without a change of muscle in her sober little face. 

"Is it allowed to go in?" asked the driver. 

"Eh — ye '11 not be calling at the hoos ? " asked the old 
man, surprised. 

"No, I 'm a stranger; but I like to see all the fine 
places in your country," I replied. 

" I 've no orders," looking at the driver reflectively ; 
" I 've no orders — but — a decent pairson " — looking 
again scrutinizingly at me, — "I think there can be no 
liairm." And he opened the gate. 

Grand trees, rolling tracts of velvet3 T turf, an ugly huge 
house of weather-beaten stone, with white pillars in front ; 
conservatories joining the wings to the centre ; no attempt 
at decorative landscape art ; grass, trees, distances, — 
these were all ; but there were miles of these. It was at 
least a mile's drive to the other entrance to the estate, 
where the old stone gateway 'house was in ruin. I fancy 
that it was better kept up in the days before an Earl of 
Eglinstoune sold it to a plain Mr. Patterson. 

At another fine estate nearer Ayr, where an old woman 
was gate-keeper, and also had " no orders" about admit- 
ting strangers, the magic word "America" threw- open the 
gates with a sweep, and bent the old dame's knees in a 
courtesy which made her look three times as broad as she 
was long. This estate had been kw always in the Oswald 
family, an' is likely always to be, please God," said the 
loyal creature, with another courtes}' at the mention, uncon- 
sciously devout as that of the Catholic when he crosses him- 
self. " An' it 's a fine country 3*e 've yersel' in America," 



A BURNS PILGRIMAGE. 167 

she added politely. The Oswald estate has acres of 
beautiful curving uplands, all green and smooth and open ; 
a lack of woods near the house, but great banks of sun- 
shine instead, make a beauty all their own ; and the Ayr 
Water, running through the grounds, and bridged grace- 
full}* here and there, is a possession to be coveted. From 
all points is a clear sight of sea, and headlands north and 
south, — Ayr harbor lying like a crescent, now silver, now 
gold, afloat between blue sky and green shore, and dusky 
gray roof-lines of the town. 

The most precious thing in all the parish of Ayr is the 
cottage in which Burns was born. It is about two miles 
south from the centre of the town, on the shore of " Bonnie 
Doon," and near Alio way Kirk. You cannot go thither from 
Ayr over an}* road except the one Tarn o' Shanter took : 
it has been straightened a little since his -day, but many a 
rod of it is the same that Maggie trod ; and Alloway Kirk 
is as ghostly a place now, even at high noon, as can be 
found -- frae Maidenkirk to Johnny Groat's." There is 
nothing left of it but the walls and the gable, in which the 
ancient bell still hangs, intensifying the silence by its 
suggestion of echoes long dead. 

The Burns cottage is now a sort of inn, kept by an 
Englishman whose fortunes would make a tale by them- 
selves. He fought at Balaklava and in our civil war ; and 
side by side on the walls of his dining-room hang, framed, 
his two commissions in the Pennsylvania Volunteers and 
the menu of the Balaklava Banquet, given in London to 
the brave fellows that came home alive after that fight. 
He does not love the Scotch people. 

" I would not give the Americans for all the Scotch ever 
born," he says, and is disposed to speak with unjust satire 
of their apparent love of Burns, which he ascribes to a 
perception of his recognition by the rest of the world and 
a shamefaced desire not to seem to be behindhand in 
paying tribute to him. 

" Oh, they let on to think much of him," he said. " It 's 
money in their pockets." 

The room in which Burns was born is still unaltered, 
except in having one more window let in. Originally, it 
had but one small square window of four panes. The bed 
is like the beds in all the old Scotch cottages, built into 



168 SCOTLAND AND ENGLAND. 

the wall, similar to those still seen in Norway. Stifling 
enough the air surely must have been in the cupboard bed 
in which the " waly boy" was born. 

" The gossip keekit in his loof ; 
Quo' seho, ' Wha lives will see the proof, — 
This waly boy will be nae eoof : 
I think we '11 ca' him Robin.' " 

Before he was mairy days old, or, as some traditions have 
it, on the veiy night he was born, a violent storm "tirled" 
away part of the roof of the poor little " clay biggin." and 
mother and babe were forced to seek shelter in a neighbor's 
cottage. Misfortune and Robin early joined compan}*, and 
never parted. The little bedroom is now the show-room of 
the inn, and is filled with tables piled with the well-known 
boxes, pincushions, baskets, paper-cutters, etc., made 
from sycamore wood grown on the banks of Doon and Ayr. 
These articles are all stamped with some pictures of scenery 
associated with Burns or with quotations from his verses. 
It is impossible to see all this money-making without think- 
ing what a delicious, rollicking bit of verse Burns would 
write about it himself if he came back to-day. There are 
those who offer for sale articles said to be made out of the 
old timbers of the Mossgiel house ; but the Balaklava 
Englishman scouts all that as the most barefaced impos- 
ture. "There was n't an inch of that timber," he says, 
— and he was there when the house was taken down, — 
"which wasn't worm-eaten and rotten; not enough to 
make a knife-handle of ! " 

One feels disposed to pass over in silence the "Burns 
Monument," which was built in 1820, at a cost of over 
three thousand pounds ; "a circular temple supported 1 >y 
nine fluted Corinthian columns, emblematic of the nine 
muses," say the guide-books. It stands in a garden over- 
looking the Doon, and is a painful sight. But in a room 
in the base of it are to be seen some relics at which no 
Burns lover can look unmoved, — the Bibles he gave 
to Highland Mary, the ring with which he wedded Jean 
(taken off after her death), and two rings containing some 
of his hair. 

It is but a few steps from this monument down to a spot 
on the " banks o' bonnie Doon," from which is a fine view 



A BURNS PILGRIMAGE. 169 

of the " auld brig." This shining, silent water, and the 
overhanging, silent trees, and the silent bell in the gable 
of Allowa}- Kirk, speak more eloquently of Burns than do 
all nine of the Corinthian muse-dedicated pillars in his 
monument. 

So do the twa brigs of Ayr, which still stand at the foot 
of High Street, silently recriminating each other as of old. 

" I doubt na, frien', ye '11 think ye'r nae sheep-shank 
When ye are streekit o'er frae bank to bank/' 

sneers the Auld ; and 

" Will your poor, narrow foot-path of a street, 
Where twa wheelbarrows tremble when they meet, 
Your ruined, formless bulk o' stane and lime, 
Compare wi' bonny brigs o' modern time? " 

retorts the New ; and ' ' the sprites that owre the brigs of 
Ayr preside" never interrupt the quarrel. Spite of all its 
boasting, however, the new bridge cracked badly two years 
ago, and had to be taken down and entirely rebuilt. 
The dingy little inn where 

" Tarn was glorious, 
O'er a' the ills o' life victorious," 

is still called by his name, and still preserves, as its chief 
claims to distinction, the big wooden mug out of which 
Tarn drank, and the chair in which he so many market- 
nights 

" Gat planted unco richt." 

The chair is of oak, wellnigh black as ebony, and far- 
rowed thick with names cut upon it. The smart young 
landlady who now keeps the house commented severely on 
this desecration of it, and said that for some years the 
house had been ' ' keepit " b} r a widow, who was "in no 
sense up to the beesiness," and "a* people did as they 
pleased in the hoos in her da} T ." The mug has a metal 
rim and base ; but spite of these it has needed to be clasped 
together again by three ribs of cane, riveted on. " Money 
couldn't buy it," the landlady said. It belongs to the 
house, is mentioned always in the terms of lease, and the 
house has changed hands but four times since Tarn's da}*. 



170 SCOTLAND AND ENGLAND. 

In a tin}' stone cottage in the southern suburbs of Ayr, 
live two nieces of Burns, daughters of his youngest sister, 
Isabella. The}* are vivacious still, and eagerly alive to all 
that goes on in the world, though they must be well on in 
the seventies. The day I called they had "just received 
a newspaper from America," they said. " Perhaps I knew 
it. It was called ' The Democrat,' " As I was not able 
to identify it by that description, the younger sister made 
haste to fetch it. It proved to be a paper printed in Mad- 
ison, Iowa. The old ladies were much interested in the 
approaching American election, had read all they could 
find about General Garfield, and were much impressed by 
the wise reticence of General Grant. "He must be a 
vary cautious man ; disna say enough to please people/' 
they said, with sagacious nods of approbation. They re- 
membered Burns's wife very well, had visited her when 
she was living, a widow, at Dumfries, and told with glee a 
story which they said she herself used to narrate, with great 
relish, of a pecller lad who, often coming to the house 
with wares to sell in the kitchen, finally expressed to the 
servant his deep desire to see Mrs. Burns. She accord- 
ingly told him to wait, and her mistress would, no doubt, 
before long come into the room. Mrs. Burns came in, 
stood for some moments talking with the lad, bought some 
trifle of him, and went away. Still he sat waiting. At 
last the servant asked why he did not go. He replied that 
she had promised he should see Mrs. Burns. 

' ' But ye have seen her ; that was she," said the 
servant. 

"Eh, eh?" said the lad. "Na! never tell me now 
that was - bonnie Jean ' ! " 

Burns's mother, too (their grandmother) , they recollected 
well, and had often heard her tell of the time when the 
family lived at Lochlea, and Robert, spending his even- 
ings at the Tarbolton merry-makings with the Bachelors' 
Club or the Masons, used to come home late in the night, 
and she used to sit up to let him in. These doings sorely 
displeased the father ; and at last he said grimly, one night, 
that he would sit up to open the door for Robert. Trem- 
bling with fear, the mother went to bed, and did not close 
her eyes, listening apprehensively for the angry meeting 
between father and son. She heard the door open, the old 



A BURNS PILGRIMAGE. 171 

man's stern tone, Eobert's gay reply ; and in a twinkling 
more the two were sitting together over the fire, the father 
splitting his sides with half-unwilling laughter at the boy's 
inimitable descriptions and mimicry of the scenes he had 
left. Nearly two hours they sat there in this way, the 
mother all the while cramming the bed-clothes into her 
mouth, lest her own laughter should remind her husband 
how poorly he was carrying out his threats. After that 
night "Rob" came home at what hour he pleased, and 
there was nothing more heard of his father's sitting up to 
reprove him. 

They believed that Burns's intemperate habits had been 
greatly exaggerated. Their mother was a woman twenty- 
five years old, and the mother of three children when he 
died, and she had never once seen him the " waur for 
liquor." "There were vary mony idle people i' the war Id, 
an' a great deal o' talk," the}- said. After his father's 
death he assumed the position of the head of the house, 
and led in family prayers each morning ; and everybody 
said, even the servants, that there were never such beauti- 
ful prayers heard. He was a generous soul. After he left 
home he never came back for a visit, however poor he 
might be, without bringing a present for every member of 
the family ; always a pound of tea for his mother, ' ' and 
tea was tea then," the old ladies added. To their mother 
he gave a copy of Thomson's "Seasons," which they still 
have. They have also some letters of his, two of which I 
read with great interest. The}' were to his brother, and 
were full of good advice. In one he says : — 

"I intended to have given you a sheetful of counsels, but 
some business has prevented me. In a word, learn taciturnity. 
Let that be your motto. Though you had the wisdom of Newton 
or the wit of Swift, garrulousness would lower you in the eyes 
of your fellow-creatures." 

In the other, after alluding to some village tragedy, in 
which great suffering had fallen on a w^oman, he says, — 

" Women have a kind of steady sufferance which qualifies 
them to endure much beyond the common run of men ; but per- 
haps part of that fortitude is owing to their short-sightedness, as 
they are by no means famous for seeing remote consequences in 
their real importance." 



172 SCOTLAND AND ENGLAND. 

The old ladies said that their mother had liked " Jean" 
on the whole, though "at first not so weel, on account 
of the connection being what it was." She was kindly, 
cheer}', "never bonny;" but had a good figure, danced 
well and sang well, and worshipped her husband. She 
was "not intellectual;" " but there's some say a poet 
should n't have an intellectual wife," one of the ingenuous 
old spinsters remarked interrogatively. "At any rate, 
she suited him ; an' it was ill speering at her after all that 
was said and done," the younger niece added, with real 
feeling in her tone. Well might she say so. If there 
be a touching picture in all the long list of faithful 
and ill-used women, it is that of " bonnie Jean," — the 
unwedded mother of children, the forgiving wife of a hus- 
band who betrayed others as he had betrayed her, — 
when she took into her arms and nursed and cared for 
her husband's child, born of an outcast woman, and bravely 
answered all curious questioners with, "It's a neebor's 
bairn I'm bringin'up." She wrought for herself a place 
and an esteem of which her honest and loving humility 
little dreamed. 

Therfc is always something sad in seeking out the spot 
where a great man has died. It is like living over the 
days of his death and burial. The more sympathetically 
we have felt the spell of the scenes in which he lived his 
life, the more vitalized and vitalizing that life was, the 
more are we chilled and depressed in the presence of pla- 
ces on which his wearied and suffering gaze rested last. 
As I drove through the ding}', confused, and ugly streets 
of Dumfries, my chief thought was, "How Burns must 
have hated this place ! " Looking back on it now, I have 
a half-regret that I ever saw it, that I can recall vividly 
the ghastly graveyard of Saint Michael's, with its twenty- 
six thousand gravestones and monuments, crowded closer 
than the} T would be in a marble-yard, ranged in rows 
against the walls without any pretence of association with 
the dust they affect to commemorate. What a ballad Burns 
might have written about such a show ! And what would 
it not have been given to him to say of the " Genius of 
Coila finding her favorite son at the plough, and casting her 
mantle over him," — that is, the sculptured monument, or, 
as the sexton called it, " Mawsolem," under which he has 



A BURNS PILGRIMAGE. 173 

had the misfortune to be buried. A great Malvern bath- 
woman, bringing a bathing-sheet to an unwilling patient, 
might have been the model for the thing. It is hideous 
beyond description, and in a refinement of ingenuity has 
been made uglier still by having the spaces between the 
pillars filled in with glass. The severe Scotch weather, it 
seems, was discoloring the marble. It is a pity that the 
zealous guardians of its beaut}' did not hold it precious 
enough to be boarded up altogether. 

The house in which Burns spent the first eighteen 
months of his dreary life in Dumfries is now a common 
tenement-house at the lower end of a poor and narrow 
Street. As I was reading the tablet let into the wall, 
bearing his name, a carpenter went by, carrying his box of 
tools slung on his shoulder. 

" He only had three rooms there," said the man, " those 
three up there," pointing to the windows; "two rooms 
and a little kitehen at the back." 

The house which is usually shown to strangers as his is 
now the home of the master of the industrial school, and 
is a comfortable little building joining the school. Here 
Burns lived lor three years ; and here, in a small chamber 
not more than twelve by fifteen feet in size, he died on the 
21st of 'July, 1796, sadly harassed in his last moments b} r 
anxiety about money matters and about the approaching 
illness of his faithful Jean. 

Opening from this room is a tiny closet, lighted by one 
windOw. 

" They say he used to make up his poetry in here," said 
the servant-girl ; "but I dare say it is only a supposee- 
tion ; still, it 'ud be a quiet place." 

" The}' say there was a great lot o' papers up here when 
he died," she added, throwing open the narrow door of a 
ladder-like stairway that led up into the garret, " writin's 
that had been sent to him from all over the world, but 
nobody knew what become of them. Now that he 's so 
much thought aboot, I wonder his widow did not keep 
them. But, ye know, the poor thing was just comin' to be 
ill ; that was the last thing he wrote when he knew he was 
dyin', for some one to come and sta} r with her ; and I dare 
sa}' she was in such a sewither she did not know about 
anything." 



174 SCOTLAND AND ENGLAND. 

The old stone stairs were winding and narrow, — painted 
now, and neatly carpeted, but worn into depressions here 
and there by the plodding of feet. Nothing in the house, 
above or below, spoke to me of Burns so much as did the}-. 
I stood silent and rapt on the landing, and saw him coming 
wearily up, that last time ; after which he went no more 
out forever, till he was borne in the arms of men, and laid 
away in Saint Michael's graveyard to rest. 

That night, at my lonely dinner in the King's Arms, I 
had the Edinburgh papers. There were in them three 
editorials headed with quotations from Burns's poems, 
and an account of the sale in Edinburgh, that week, of an 
autograph letter of his for ninet3'-four pounds ! 

Does he think sadlv, even in heaven, how differently he 
might have done by himself and 03^ earth, if earth had 
done for him then a tithe of what it does now? Does he 
know it? Does he care? And does he listen when, in 
lands he never saw, great poets sing of him in words sim- 
ple and melodious as his own? 

"For now he haunts his native land 
As an immortal youth : his hand 

Guides every plough ; 
He sits heside each ingle-nook, 
His voice is in each rushing brook, 
Each rustling bough. 

" His presence haunts this room to-night, 
A form of mingled mist and light 

From that far coast. 
Welcome beneath this roof of mine ! 
Welcome ! this vacant chair is thine, 

Dear guest and ghost ! " 1 

1 Longfellow. 



GLINTS IN AULD REEKIE. 

As soon as one comes to know Edinburgh, he feels a 
gratitude to that old gentleman of Fife who is said to have 
invented the affectionate phrase " Auld Reekie." Perhaps 
there never was airy such old gentleman ; and perhaps he 
never did, as the legend narrates, regulate the hours of his 
family prayers, on summer evenings, lyy the thickening 
smoke which he could see rising from Edinburgh chimne}*s, 
when the cooking of suppers began. 

"It's time now, bairns, to tak the beuks an' gang to 
our beds ; for yonder \s Auld Reekie, I see, putting on her 
nichtcap," are the words which the harmless little tradition 
puts into his mouth. They are wisely dated back to the 
reign of Charles II., a time from which none now speak 
to contradict ; and they serve as well as any others to in- 
troduce and emphasize the epithet which, once heard, is 
not forgotten by a lover of Edinburgh, remaining always 
in his memory, like a pet name of one familiarly known. 

It is not much the fashion of travellers to become at- 
tached to Edinburgh. Rome for antiquity, London for 
study and stir, Florence for art, Venice for art and en- 
chantment combined, — all these have pilgrims who be- 
come worshippers, and return again and again to them, as 
the devout return to shrines. But few return thus to 
Edinburgh. It continually happens that people planning 
routes of travel are heard to say, ' ' I have seen Edinburgh,'' 
pronouncing the word "seen" with a stress indicating a 
finalit}- of completion. Nobody ever uses a phrase in 
that wa}' about Rome or Venice. It is always, "We have 
been in," " spent a winter in," " a summer in," or " a 
month in" Rome, or Venice, or any of the rest; and the 
very tone and turn of the phrase tell the desire or purpose 



176 SCOTLAND AND ENGLAND. 

of another winter, or summer, or month in the remembered 
and longed-for place. 

But Edinburgh has no splendors with which to woo and 
attract. She is " a penniless lass ; " w ' wi' a lang pedigree," 
however, — as long and as splendid as the best, reaching 
back to King Arthur at least, and some say a thousand 
years farther, and assert that the rock on which her castle 
stands was a stronghold when Home was a village. At any 
rate, there was a fortress there long before Edinburgh was 
a town, and that takes it back midwa}" between the five 
hundredth and six hundredth year of our Lord. From that 
century down to this it was the centre of as glorious and 
terrible fighting and suffering as the world has ever seen. 
Kingly besieged and besiegers, prisoners, maiiyrs, men 
and women alike heroic, their presences throng each door- 
way still ; and the very stones at a touch seem set ringing 
again with the echoes of their triumphs and their agonies. 

To me, the castle is Edinburgh. Looking from the 
sunny south windows of Prince's Street across at its hoary 
front is like a wizard's miracle, by which dead centuries 
are rolled back, compressed into minutes. At the foot of 
its north precipices, where la} 7 the lake in which, in the 
seventeenth centmy, ro}al swans floated and plebeian 
courtesans were ducked, now stretches a gay gardened 
meadow, through which flash daily railway trains. Their 
columns of blue smoke scale the rocks, coil after coil, but 
never reach the citadel summit, being tangled, spent, and 
lost in the tops of trees, which in their turn seem also to 
be green-plumed besiegers, ever climbing, climbing. For 
five days I looked out on this picture etched against a sum- 
mer sk} T : in black, by night ; in the morning, of soft sepia 
tints, or gray, — tower, battlement, wall, and roof, all in 
sk} 7 lines ; below these the wild crags and precipices, a 
mosaic of grays, two hundred feet down, to a bright green- 
sward dotted with white daisies. Set steadily to the sun- 
rise, b} 7 a west wind which never stopped blowing for the 
whole five days, streamed out the flag. To have read on 
its folds, " Castelh-Mynyd-Agned," or " Castrum Puella- 
rum," would not have seemed at any hour a surprise. 
There is nowhere a relic of antiquity which so dominates 
its whole environment as does this rock fortress. Its 
actuality is sovereign ; its personality majestic. The thou- 



GLINTS IN AULD REEKIE. 177 

sands of modern people thronging up and down Prince's 
Street seem perpetrating an impertinent anachronism. 
The times are the castle's times still ; all this nineteenth- 
century haberdashery and chatter is an inexplicable and 
insolent freak of interruption. Sitting at one's Prince's 
Street windows, one sees it not ; overlooks it as meaning- 
less and of no consequence. Instead, he sees the consta- 
ble's son, in Bruce's day, coming down that two hundred 
feet of precipice, hand over hand, on a bit of rope ladder, 
to visit the u wench in town " with whom he was in love ; 
and anon turning this love-lore of his to patriotic account, 
by leading Earl Douglas, with his thirty picked Scots, up 
the same precipices, in the same perilous fashion, to sur- 
prise the English garrison, which they did to such good 
purpose that in a few hours they retook the castle, the 
only one then left w T hich Bruce had not recovered. Or, 
when morning and evening mists rise slowly up from the 
meadow, veil the hill, and float off in hazy wreaths from its 
summit, he fancies fagots and tar-barrels ablaze on the 
esplanade, and the beauteous Lad}^ Glammis, with her 
white arms crossed on her breast, burning to death there, 
with eyes fixed on the windows of her husband's prison. 
Scores of other women with " fayre bodies" were burned 
alive there ; men, too, their lovers and sons, — all for a 
crime of which no human soul ever was or could be guilty. 
Poor, blinded, superstitious earth, which heard and saw and 
permitted such things ! Even to-day, when the ground is 
dug up on that accursed esplanade, there are found the 
ashes of these martyrs to the witchcraft madness. 

That grand old master-gunner, too, of Cromwell's first 
following, — each sunset gun from the castle seemed to me 
in honor of his memorj', and recalled his name. " May 
the devil blaw me into the air, if I lowse a cannon this 
da}- ! " said he, when Charles's men bade him fire a salute 
in honor of the Restoration. Ever\ r other one of Crom- 
well's men in the garrison had turned false, and done ready 
service to the king's officers ; but not so Browne. It was 
only by main force that he was dragged to his gun, and 
forced to fire it. Whether the gun were old, and its time 
had come to burst, or whether the splendid old Puritan 
slyly overweighed his charge, it is open to each man's pre- 
ference to believe ; but burst the gun did, and, taking the 

12 



178 SCOTLAND AND ENGLAND. 

hero at his word, " sbuites his bellie from him, and blew 
him quyte over the castle wall," says the old record. I 
make no doubt myself that it was just what the master- 
guuner iutended. 

Thirty years later there were mairy gunners in Edin- 
burgh Castle as brave as he, or braver, — men who stood 
by their guns month after month, starving by inches and 
freezing ; the snow lying knee-deep on the shattered bas- 
tions ; every roof shelter blown to fragments ; no fuel ; 
their last well so low that the water was putrid ; raw salt 
herrings the only food for the men, and for the officers oat- 
meal, stirred in the putrid water. This was the Duke of 
Gordon's doing, when he vowed to hold Edinburgh Castle 
for King James, if every other fortress in Scotland went 
over to "William. When his last hope failed, and he gave 
his men permission to abandon the castle and go out to 
the enemy, if they chose, not a man would go. "Three 
cheers for his grace," the}' raised, with their poor starved 
voices, and swore they would stay as long as he did. 
From December to June they held out, and then surren- 
dered, a handful of fifty ghastly, emaciated, tottering men. 
Pit}' the}* could not have known how much grander than 
victories such defeats as theirs would read by and by ! 

Hard by the castle was the duke's house, in Blair's 
Close ; in this he was shut up prisoner, under strict guard. 
The steps up which he walked that day, for the first time 
in his life without his sword, are still there ; his coronet, 
with a deer-hound on either side, in dingy stone carving, 
above the low door. It is one of the doorways worth 
haunting, in Edinburgh. Generations of Dukes of Gordon 
have trodden its threshold, from the swordless hero of 1689 
down to the young lover who, in George the Third's day, 
went courting his duchess, over in Hynclford's Close, at 
the bottom of High Street. She was a famous beauty, 
daughter of Lady Maxwell ; and thanks to one gossip and 
another, we know a good deal about her bringing-up. 
There was still living in Edinburgh, sixty years ago, an 
aged and courtly gentleman, who recollected well having 
seen her riding a sow in High Street ; her sister running 
behind and thumping the beast with a stick. Duchesses 
are not made of such stuff in these days. It almost passes 
belief what one reads in old records of the wa}s and 



GLINTS IN AULD REEKIE. 179 

manners of Scottish nobilhry in the first half of the eigh- 
teenth century. These Maxwells' fine laces were always 
drying in the narrow passage from their front stair to their 
drawing-room ; and their undergear hanging out on a pole 
from an upper window in full sight of passers-by, as is still 
the custom with the poverty-stricken people who live in 
Hyndford's Close. 

On the same stair with the Maxwells lived the Countess 
Anne of Balcarres, mother of eleven children, the eldest of 
whom wrote ' ' Auld Robin Gray." She was poor and proud, 
and a fierce Jacobite to the last. To be asked to drink tea 
in Countess Anne's bedchamber was great honor. The 
room was so small that the man-servant, John, gorgeous 
in the Balcarres livery, had to stand snugged up to the 
bedpost. Here, with one arm around the post, he stood 
like a statue, read}' to hand the teakettle as it was needed. 
When the noble ladies differed about a date or a point of 
genealogj', John was appealed to, and often so far forgot 
his manners as to swear at the mention of assumers and 
pretenders to baronetcies. 

There is an endless fascination in going from house to 
house, in their old wynds and closes, now. A price has 
to be paid for it, — bad smells, filth underfoot, and, very 
likely, volleys of ribald abuse from gin-loosened tongues 
right and left and high up overhead ; but all this only em- 
phasizes the picture, and makes one's mental processions 
of earls and countesses all the livelier and more vivid. 

Some of these wynds are so narrow and dark that one 
hesitates about plunging into them. The}' seem little more 
than rifts between dungeons : seven, eight, and nine stories 
high, the black walls stretch up. If there is a tiny court- 
yard, it is like the bottom of a foul well ; and looking to the 
hand's-breadth of slvy visible above, it seems so far up 
and so dark blue, one half expects to see its stars glimmer- 
ing at noondaj'. A single narrow winding stone stair is 
the only means of going up and down ; and each floor being 
swarming full of wretched human beings, each room a tene- 
ment house in itself, of course this common stairway be- 
comes a highway of contentions, the very battle-ground of 
the house. Progress up or down can be stopped at a sec- 
ond's notice ; a single pair of elbows is a blockade. How 
sedan chairs were managed in these corkscrew crevices 



180 SCOTLAND AND ENGLAND. 

is a puzzle ; yet we read that the ladies of quality went 
always in sedan chairs to balls and assemblies. 

In the Stamp Office Close, now the refuge of soot- 
venders, old-clothes dealers, and hucksters of lowest de- 
gree, tramps, beggars, and skulkers of all sorts, still is 
locked tight every night a big carved door, at foot of the 
stair down which used to come stately Lad} 7 Eglintoune, 
the third, with her seven daughters, in fine array. Tt was 
one of the sights of the town to see the procession of their 
eight sedan chairs on the way to a dance. The countess 
herself was six feet tall, and her daughters not much below 
her ; all strikingly handsome, and of such fine bearing that 
it went into the traditions of the century as the "Eglin- 
toune air." There also went into the traditions of the 
century some details of the earl's wooing, which might 
better have been kept a secret between him and his father- 
in-law. The second Lad}' Eglintoune was ailing, and like 
to die, when Sir Archibald Kenned}' arrived in Edinburgh, 
with his stalwart but beautiful daughter Susanna. She 
was much sought immediately ; and Sir Archibald, in his 
perplexity among the many suitors, one day consulted his 
old friend Eglintoune. " Bide a wee, Sir Arch}'," replied 
the earl, — " bide a wee ; my wife 's very sickly." And 
so, by waiting, the fair Susanna became Countess of Eglin- 
toune. It would seem as if Nature had some intent to 
punish the earl's impatient faithlessness to his sickly wife ; 
for, year after year, seven years running, came a daughter, 
and no son, to the house of Eglintoune. At last the earl, 
with a readiness to ignore marital obligations at which his 
third countess need not have been surprised, bluntly threat- 
ened to divorce her if she bore him no heir. Promptly 
the spirited Susanna replied that nothing would please her 
better, provided he would give her back all she brought 
him. "Every penny of it, and welcome!" retorted the 
earl, supposing she referred to her fortune. " Na, na, my 
lord," replied the lady, " that winna do. Return me my 
youth, beauty, and virginity, and dismiss me when you 
please ; " upon which the matter dropped. In the end, 
the earl fared better than he deserved, three sons being 
given him within the next five years. 

For half a century Lady Eglintoune was a prominent 
figure in Scottish social life. Her comings and goings and 



GLINTS IN AULD REEKIE. 181 

doings were all chronicled, and handed down. It is even 
told that when Johnson and Boswell visited her at her 
conntiy-place, she was so delighted with Johnson's con- 
versation that she kissed him on parting, — from which we 
can argue her lad}'ship's liking for long words. She lived 
to be ninet}*-one, and amused herself in her last days by 
taming rats, of which she had a dozen or more in such 
subjection that at a tap on the oak wainscoting of her 
dining-room they came forth, joined her at her meal, and 
at a word of command retired again into the wainscot. 

When twenty-first-centiny travellers go speiring among 
the dingy ruins of cities which are gay and fine now, they 
will not find relics and traces of such individualities as 
these. The eighteenth century left a most entertaining 
budget, which we of to-day are too busy and too well edu- 
cated to equal. No chiel among us all has the time to 
take gossip notes of this centur} T ; and even if he did, 
the} 7 would be dull enough in comparison with those of the 
last. 

Groping and rummaging in Hrndford's Close, one day, 
for recognizable traces of Lady Maxwell's house, we had 
the good fortune to encounter a thrifty housewife, of the 
better class, living there. She was coming home, with 
her market-basket on her arm. Seeing our eager scenting 
of the old carvings on lintels and sills, and overhearing our 
mention of the name of the Duchess of Gordon, she made 
bold to address us. 

' ' It waur a strange place for the nobeelity to be livin' 
in, to be sure," she said. " I 'm livin' m}'sil in ane o' the 
best of 'im, an* it 's na mair space to 't than nd turn a cat. 
Ye 're welcome to walk up, if ye like to see what their 
dwellin's waur like in the auld time. It 's a self-contained 
stair ye see," she added with pride, as she marshalled us 
up a twisting stone stairway, so narrow that even one 
person, going alone, must go cautiously to avoid grazing 
elbows and shins on the stonewalls, at every turn. "I 
couldna abide the place but for the self-contained stair : 
there 's not man} 7 has them," she continued. " Mind yer 
heads ! mind yer heads ! There 's a stoop ! " she cried ; 
but it was too late. We had reached, unwarned, a point 
in the winding stair where it was necessaiy to go bent 
half double ; only a little child could have stood upright. 



182 SCOTLAND AND ENGLAND. 

With heads dizzy from the blow and eyes half blinded by 
the sudden darkness, we stumbled on, and brought out in 
a passage-way, perhaps three feet wide and ten long, from 
which opened four rooms : one the kitchen, a totally dark 
closet, not over six feet square ; a tiny grate, a chair, 
table, and a bunk in the wall, where the servant slept, 
were all its furniture. The woman lighted a candle to 
show us how convenient was this bunk for the maid " to 
lie." Standing in the middle of the narrow passage, one 
could reach his head into kitchen, parlor, and both bed- 
rooms without changing his position. The four rooms 
together would hardly have made one good-sized chamber. 
Nothing but its exquisite neatness and order saved the 
place from being insupportable ! Even those would not 
save it when herring suppers should be broiling in the 
closet surnamed kitchen. Up a still smaller, narrower 
crevice in the wall led a second " self-contained stair," 
dark as midnight, and so low roofed there was no standing 
upright in it, even at the beginning. This led to what the 
landlady called the " lodgers' flairt." We had not courage 
to venture up, though she w T as exceedingly anxious to show 
us her seven good bedrooms, three double and four single, 
which were nightly filled with lodgers, at a shilling a night. 

Only the " verra rayspectable," she said, came to lodge 
with her. Her husband w T as " verra pairticular." Trades- 
people from the countiy were the chief of their customers, 
1 ' an' the same a-comin' for seven 3'ear, noo." No doubt 
she has as lively a pride, and gets as many satisfactions 
between these narrow walls, as did the lords and ladies of 
1700. Evidently not the least of her satisfactions was 
the fact that those lords and ladies had lived there before 
her. 

Nowhere are Auld Reekie's antitheses of new and old 
more emphasized than in the Cowgate. In 1530 it was 
an elegant suburb. The city walls even then extended 
to enclose it, and it was eloquently described, in an old 
divine's writings, as the place " ubi nihil est humile aut 
rusticum, sed omnia magnifica." 

In one of its grass} 7 lanes the Earl of Galloway built a 
mansion. His countess often went to pay visits to her 
neighbors, in great state, driving six horses ; and it not 
infrequently happened that when her ladyship stepped 



GLINTS IN AULD REEKIE. 183 

into her coach, the leaders were standing opposite the door 
at which she intended to alight. 

Here dwelt, in 1617, the famous " Tarn o' the Cowgate," 
Earl of Haddington, boon companion of King James, who 
came often to dine with him, and gave him the familiar 
nickname of Tarn. Tarn was so rich he was vulgarly 
believed to have the philosopher's stone ; but he himself 
once gave a more probable explanation of his wealth, saying 
that his only secret lay in two rules, — " never to put off till 
to-morrow that which could be done to-day," and " never 
to trust to another what his own hand could execute." 

To-day there is not in all the world, outside the Jewish 
Ghetto of Rome, so loathly wretched a street as this same 
Cowgate. Even at high noon it is not always safe to walk 
through it ; and there are many of its wynds into which 
no man would go without protection of the police. Simply 
to drive through it is harrowing. The place is indescriba- 
ble. It seems a perpetual and insatiable carnival of vice 
and misery. The misery alone would be terrible enough 
to see ; but the leering, juggling, insolent vice added makes 
it indeed hellish. Every curbstone, door-sill, alley mouth, 
window, swarms with faces out of which has gone every 
trace of self-respect or decenc} T ; babies' faces as bad as 
the worst, and the most aged faces worst of all. To pause 
on the sidewalk is to be surrounded, in a moment, by a 
dangerous crowd of half-naked boys and girls, whining, 
begging, elbowing, cursing, and fighting. Giving of an alms 
is like pouring oil on a fire. The whole gang is ablaze 
with envy and attack : the fierce and unscrupulous pillage 
of the seventeenth centuiy is re-enacted in miniature in 
the Cowgate every day, when an injudicious stranger, 
passing through, throws a handful of pennies to the beg- 
gars. The general look of hopeless degradation in the 
spot is heightened by the great number of old -clothes 
shops along the whole line of the street. In the days 
when the Cowgate was an elegant suburb, the citizens 
were permitted hy law to extend their upper stories seven 
feet into the street, provided the}- would build them of 
wood cut in the Borough Forest, a forest that harbored 
robbers dangerous to the town. These projecting upper 
stories are invaluable now to the old-clothes venders, who 
hang from them their hideous wares, in double and treble 



184 SCOTLAND AND ENGLAND. 

lines, fluttering over the heads and in the faces of passers- 
by ; the wood of the Borough Forest thus, hy a strange irony 
of fate, still continuing to harbor dangers to public welfare. 
If these close-packed tiers of dangling rags in the Cowgate 
were run out in a straight single line, they would be miles 
long ; a sad beggars' arras to behold. The preponderance 
of tattered finery in it acids to its melanchol} 7 : shreds of 
damask ; dirty lace ; theatrical costumes ; artificial flowers 
so crumpled, broken, and soiled that the} 7 would seem to 
have been trodden in gutters, — there was an indefinable 
horror in the thought that there could be even in the Cow- 
gate a woman creature who could think herself adorned 
by such mockeries of blossoms. But I saw more than one 
poor soul look at them with longing e}'es, finger them, 
haggle at the price, and walk away disappointed that she 
could not buy. 

The quaint mottoes here and there in the grimy walls, 
built in when the Cowgate people were not only comfort- 
able but pious, must serve often now to point bitter jests 
among the ungodly. On one wretched, reeking tenement 
is : "Oh, magnif}' the Lord with me, and let us exalt his 
name together. 1643." On another, " All my trist is in 
ye Lord." 

A token I saw in the Cowgate of one life there not 
without hope and the capacity of enjoyment. It was in a 
small window, nine stories up from the ground, in a wynd 
so close that hands might be clasped from house to house 
across it. It was a tin} T thing, but nw e}*e fell on it with 
as much relief as on a rift of blue sky in a storm : it w r as 
a little green fern growing in a pot. Outside the window 
it stood, on a perilously narrow ledge. As I watched it I 
grew frightened, lest the wind should blow it down, or a 
vicious neighbor stone it off. It seemed the brave signal 
flying of a forlorn hope, of a dauntless, besieged soul that 
would never surrender ; and I shall recollect it long after 
eveiy other picture of the Cowgate scenes has grown dim. 

The more respectable of the pawnbrokers' or second- 
hand-goods shops in Edinburgh are interesting places to 
rummage. If there were no other record of the slow decay 
and dwindling fortunes of the noble Scottish folk, it could 
be read in the great number of small dealers in relics of 
the olden time. 



GLINTS IN AULD REEKIE. 185 

Old buckles and brooches and clan badges ; chains, 
lockets, seals, rings ; faded miniatures, on ivory or in mo- 
saics, of women as far back as Mary's time, loved then as 
well as was ever Mary herself, but forgotten now as if they 
had never been ; swords rusty, bent, battered, and stained ; 
spoons with forgotten crests ; punch-ladles worn smooth 
with the merry-makings of generations, — all these one 
may find in scores of little one-roomed shops, kept per- 
haps by aged dames with the veiy aroma of the antique 
Puritanism lingering about them still. 

In such a room as this I found a Scotch pebble brooch 
with a quaint silver setting, reverently and cautiously 
locked in a glass case. On the back of it had been 
scratched, apparently with a pin, " Margret Fleming, from 
her brother." I bore it away with me triumphantly, sure 
that it had belonged to an ancestor of Pet Marjorie. 

Almost as full of old-time atmosphere as the pawnbrok- 
ers' shops are the antiquarian bookstores. Here one may 
possess himself, if he likes, of well-thumbed volumes with 
heraldic crests on titlepages, dating back to the earliest 
reading done by noble earls and baronets in Scotland ; 
even to the time when not to know how to read was no in- 
delible disgrace. In one of these shops, on the day I 
bought Margret Fleming's brooch, I found an old torn 
cop}' of " Pet Marjorie." Speaking of Dr. Brown and Rab 
to the bookseller, — himself almost a relic of antiquity, — 
I was astonished and greatly amused to hear him reply : 
"It's a' a feection. . . . He can't write without it. . . . 
I knoo that darg. ... A verra neece darg he was, but — 
a — a — a " — with a shake of the head — " it 's a verra 
neece stor}-, verra neece. . . . He wrote it up, up ; not 
but that Rab was a verra neece darg. I knoo the darg 

Willi." 

Not a word of more definite disclaimer or contradiction 
could I win from the canny old Scot. But to have hastily 
called the whole story a lee, from beginning to end, would 
hardly have shaken one's confidence in it so much as did 
the thoughtful deliberation of his "He was a verra neece 
darg. I knoo the darg wull." 

One of our "cawdies," during our stay in Edinburgh, 
was a remarkable fellow. After being for twenty years a 
gentleman's servant, he had turned his back on aristocracy, 



186 SCOTLAND AND ENGLAND. 

and betaken himself to the streets for a living ; driving 
cabs, or piloting strangers around the city, as might be. 
But his earlier habits of good behavior were strong in 
him still, and came to the surface quickly in associations 
which revived them. His conversation reminded us for- 
cibly of somebody's excellent saying that Scotland would 
always be Scott-land. Not a line of Scott's novels which 
this vagabond cawdie did not seemingry know by heart. 
Scottish history, too, he had at his tongue's end, and its 
most familiar episodes sounded new and entertaining as he 
phrased them. Even the death of Queen Mary seemed 
freshly stated, as he put it, when, after summing up the 
cruelties she had experienced at the hands of Elizabeth, he 
wound up with, "And finally she beheaded her, and that 
was the last of her," — a succinctness of close which some 
of Mar}*'s historians would have done well to simulate. 

Of Jeanie Deans and Dumbiedikes he spoke as of old 
acquaintances. He pointed out a spot in the misty blue 
distance where was Dumbiedikes' house, where Jeanie's 
sweetheart dwelt, and where the road lay on which Jeanie 
went to London. 

" It was there the old road to London lay ; and would n't 
3 T ou think it more natural, sir, that it was that wa} T she 
went, and it was there she met Dumbiedikes, and he gave 
her the purse ? I '11 always maintain, sir, that it was there 
she got it." 

Of the two women, Jeanie Deans and Mary Queen of 
Scots, Jeanie was evidently the vivider and more real in 
his thoughts. 

The second day of our stay in Edinburgh was a gay day 
in the castle. The 71st Highlanders had just returned 
from a twelvemonth's stay at Gibraltar. It was people's 
da} r . Everj-where the bronzed, tired, happy-looking fel- 
lows, in their smartened uniforms, were to be encountered, 
strolling, lounging, sitting with sweethearts or wives, — 
more of the former than the latter. It struck me also that 
the women were less good-looking than the men ; but they 
were all beautified by happiness, and the meny sounds of 
their laughter, and the rumble of skittles playing filled all 
the place. Inside the castle, the room in which the regalia 
were on exhibition was thronged with country people, 
gazing reverently on its splendors. 



GLINTS IN AULD REEKIE. 187 

14 Keep 3 T er eye on % as ye walk by, an' mark the 
changes o' 't," 1 heard one old lady say to her husband, 
whose wandering gaze seemed to her neglectful of the 
opportunity. 

A few gay-dressed women, escorted by officers, held 
themselves apart from the soldiers' sweethearting, and 
were disposed, I thought, to look a little scornfully on it. 
The soldiers did not seem to mind the affront, if they saw 
it ; no doubt, they thought their own sweethearts far the 
better looking, and if they had ever heard of it would have 
quoted with hearty good- will the old ballad, — 

" The lassies o' the Cannongate, 
Oh, they are wondrous nice : 
They winna gie a single kiss, 
But for a double price. 

" Gar hang them, gar hang them, 
Hie upon a tree ; 
For we '11 get better up the gate, 
For a bawbee ! " 

Most picturesque of all the figures to be seen in Edin- 
burgh are the Newhaven fishwives. With short, full blue 
cloth petticoats, reaching barely to their ankles ; white 
blouses and gay kerchiefs ; big, long-sleeved cloaks of the 
same blue cloth, fastened at the throat, but flying loose, 
sleeves and all, as if thrown on in haste ; the girls bare- 
headed ; the married women with white caps, standing up 
stiff and straight in a point on the top of the head ; two big 
wickerwork creels, one above the other, full offish, packed 
securely, on their broad shoulders, and held in place b} T a 
stout leather strap passing round their foreheads, the}^ pull 
along at a steady, striding gait, up hill and down, carrying 
weights that it taxes a man's strength merely to lift. In 
fact, it is a fishwife's boast that she will run with a weight 
which it takes two men to put on her back. By reason of 
this great strength on the part of the women, and their 
immemorial habit of exercising it ; perhaps also from other 
causes far back in the early days of Jutland, where these 
curious Newhaven fishing-folk are said to have originated, 
— it has come about that the Newhaven men are a singularly 
docile and submissive race. The wives keep all the money 
which they receive for the fish, and the husbands take what 



188 SCOTLAND AND ENGLAND. 

is given them, — a singular reversion of the situation in 
most communities. I did not believe this when it was 
told me ; so I stopped three fishwives one day, and with- 
out mincing matters put the question direct to them. Two 
of them were young, one old. The young women laughed 
saucily, and the old woman smiled ; but they all replied 
unhesitatingly, that they had the spending of all the 
monej-. 

" It's a' spent i' the hoos," said one, anxious not to be 
thought too selfish, — " it 's a' spent i' the hoos. The 
men, they cam home an' tak their sleep, an' then they '11 
be aff agen." 

" It 'ud never do for the husbands to stoop In tha city, 
an' be spendin' a' the money," added the old woman, with 
severe emphasis. 

I learned afterward that on the present system of buy- 
ing and selling the fish, the fishermen do receive from their 
labor an income independent of their wives. They are 
the first sellers of the fish, — selling them in quantity to 
the wholesale dealers, who sell in turn at auction to the 
". retail trade," represented by the wives. This seems an 
unjust system, and is much resented by both husbands 
and wives ; but it has been established by law, and there 
is no help for it. It came in with the introduction of the 
steam trawlers. u They're the deestrooction o' the place," 
said one of the fishwomen. " A mon canna go oot wi' his 
lines an' mak a livin' noo. They just drag everything ; 
they tak a' the broods ; they 're doom' a worrld o' harrm. 
There 's somethin' a dooin' aboot it in the House o' Com- 
mons, noo, but a canna till hoo it wull go. They ull be 
the deestrooction o' this place, if they 're na pit stop to." 
And she shook her fist vindictively at a purring trawler 
which had just pushed away from the wharf. 

Whoever would see the Newhaven fishwives at their 
best must be on the Newhaven wharf by seven o'clock in 
the morning, on a day when the trawlers come in and the 
fish is sold. The scene is a study for a painter. 

The fish are in long, narrow boxes, on the wharf, ranged 
at the base of the sea wall ; some sorted out, in piles, 
each kind by itself: skates, with their long tails, which 
look vicious, as if they could kick ; hake, witches, brill, 
sole, flounders, huge catfish, crayfish, and herrings, by the 



GLINTS IN AULD REEKIE. 189 

ton. The wall is crowded with men, Edinburgh fishmon- 
gers, come to buy cheap on the spot. The wall is not 
over two feet wide ; and here they stand, lean over, jostle, 
slip b\- to right and left of each other, and run up and 
down in their eager haste to catch the e}*e of one auction- 
eer, or to get first speech with another. The wharf is 
crowded with women, — an army in blue, two hundred, 
three hundred, at a time ; white caps bobbing, elbows 
thrusting, shrill voices crying, fiery blue ej'es shining, it 
is a sight worth going to Scotland for. If one has had an 
affection for Christie Johnstone, it is a delightful return of 
his old admiration for her. A dozen faces which might be 
Christie's own are flashing up from the crowd ; one under- 
stands on the instant how that best of good stories came to 
be written. A man with eyes in his head and a pen in his 
hand could not have clone less. Such fire, such honesty, 
such splendor of vitalit}', kindle the women's faces. To 
spend a few days among them would be to see Christie 
Johnstone dramatized on all sides. 

On the morning when I drove out from Edinburgh to 
see this scene, a Scotch mist was simmering down, — so 
warm that at first it seemed of no consequence whatever, 
so cold that all of a sudden one found himself pierced 
through and through with icy shivers. This is the univer- 
sal qualhVv of a Scotch mist or drizzle. 

The Newhaven wharf is a narrow pier running out to 
sea. On one side la}' the steam trawlers, which had just 
unloaded their freight ; on the other side, on the narrow, 
rampart-like wall of stone, swarmed the fishmonger men. 
In this line I took my place, and the chances of the scram- 
ble. Immediately the jolly fishwives caught sight of me, 
and began to nod and smile. They knew very well I was 
there to ' k speir " at them. 

" Ye '11 tak cauld ! " cried one motherly old soul, with 
her white hair blowing wilclry about almost enough to lift 
the cap off her head. " Com doon ! Ye '11 tak cauld." 

I smiled, and pointed to my water-proof cloak, down 
which, it must be admitted, the " mist" was trickling in 
streams, while the cloak itself flapped in the wind like a 
loose sail. She shook her head scornfully. 

" It 's a grat plass to tak cauld ! " she cried. ' ' Ye '11 
doo wnll to com doon." 



190 SCOTLAND AND ENGLAND. 

There were three auctioneers: one, a handsome, fair- 
haired, blue-eyed young fellow, was plainly a favorite with 
the women. They flocked after him as he passed from one 
to another of the different lots of fish. They crowded in 
close circles around him, three and four deep ; pushing, 
struggling, rising on tiptoes to look over each other's 
shoulders and get sight of the fish. 

• k What 's offered for this lot o' fine herrings ? One ! One 
and sax ! Thrippence ha' ! Going, going, gone ! " rang 
above all the clatter and chatter of the women's tongues. 
It was so swift that it seemed over before it was fairly 
begun ; and the surging circles had moved along to a new 
spot and a new trade. The e} T es of the women were fixed 
on the auctioneer's eyes ; the}' beckoned ; they shook fore- 
fingers at him ; now and then a tall, stalwart one, reach- 
ing over less able-bodied comrades, took him by the 
shoulder, and compelled him to turn her way ; one, most 
fearless of all, literally gripped him by the ear and pulled 
his head around, shrieking out her bid. When the pres- 
sure got unbearable, the young fellow would shake himself 
like a Newfoundland dog, and, laughing good-naturedly, 
whirl his arms wide round to clear a breathing space ; the 
women would fall back a pace or two, but in a moment the 
rings would close up again, tighter than ever. 

The efforts of those in the outer ring to break through 
or see over the inner ones were droll. Arms and hands 
and heads seemed fairly interlinked and interwoven. Some- 
times a pair of hands would come into sight, pushing their 
way between two bodies, low down, — just the two hands, 
nothing more, breaking wa}' for themselves, as if in a 
thicket of underbrush ; presently the arms followed ; and 
then, with a quick thrust of the arms to right and left, the 
space would be widened enough to let in the head, and 
when that was fairly through the victory was won . Straight- 
ening herself with a big leap, the woman bounded in front 
of the couple she had so skilfully separated, and a buzzing 
'•bicker" of an giy words would rise for a moment; but 
there was no time to waste in bad temper where bargains 
were to be made or lost in the twinkling of an e3 T e. 

An old sailor, who stood near me on the wall, twice 
saved me from going backwards into the sea, in nry hasty 
efforts to better my standpoint. He also seemed to be there 



GLINTS IN AULD REEKIE. 191 

simply as a spectator, and I asked him how the women 
knew what they were buying ; buying, as they did, by the 
pile or the box. 

"Oh, the}* 11 giss, verra near," he said; "they've an 
eye on the fish sense they 're bawn. God knows it 's verra 
little the}* mak," he added, "an' they '11 carry 's much 's 
two men o' us can lift. They 're extrawnery Strang." 

As a lot of catfish were thrown down at our feet, he 
looked at them with a shudder and exclaimed, — 

"I'd no eat that." 

- - Why not ? " said I. ' ' Are they not good ? " 

" Ah, I 'd no eat it," he replied, with a look of supersti- 
tious terror spreading over his face. " It doesna look 
richt." 

A fresh trawler came in just as the auction had nearly 
ended. The excitement renewed itself fiercely. The 
crowd surged over to the opposite side of the pier, and a 
Babel of voices arose. The skipper was short and fat, and 
in his dripping oilskin suit looked like a cross between a 
catfish and a frog. 

"Here, you Rob," shouted the auctioneer, "what do 
you add to this fine lot o' herrin' ? " 

"Herring be d d!" growled the skipper, out of 

temper, for some reason of his own ; at which a whirring 
sound of ejaculated disapprobation burst from the women's 
lips. 

The fish w*ere in great tanks on the deck. Quickly the 
sailors dipped up pails of the sea-water, dashed it over 
them, and piled them into baskets, in shining, slippery 
masses : the whole load was on the pier, sorted, and sold 
in a few minutes. 

Then the women settled down to the work of assorting 
and packing up their fish. One after another they shoul- 
dered their creels and set off for Edinburgh. The}* seemed 
to have much paying back and forth of silver among them- 
selves, one small piece of silver that I noticed actually 
travelling through four different hands in the five minutes 
during which I watched it. Each woman wore under her 
apron, in front, a sort of apron-like bag, in which she car- 
ried her money. There was evidently rivalry among them. 
They spied closely on each other's loads, and did some 
trafficking and exchange before they set off. One poor 



192 SCOTLAND AND ENGLAND. 

old creature had bought only a few crayfish, and as she 
lifted her creel to her back, and crawled away, the women 
standing by looked over into her basket, and laughed and 
jeered at her ; but she gave no sign of hearing a word 
the}' said. 

Some of them were greatly discontented with their pur- 
chases when they came to examine them closely, espe- 
cially one woman who had bought a box of flounders. She 
emptied them on the ground, and sorted the few big ones, 
which had been artfully laid on the top ; then, putting the 
rest, which were all small, in a pile by themselves, she 
pointed contemptuously to the contrast, and, with a toss 
of her head, ran after the auctioneer, and led him b}- the 
sleeve back to the spot where her fish la}'. She was as 
fierce as Christie herself could have been at the imposition. 
She had paid the price for big flounders, and had got small 
ones. The auctioneer opened his book and took out his 
pencil to correct the entry which had been made against 
her. 

" Wull, tak aff saxpence," he said. 

"Xa! na!" cried she. "They're too dear at seven 
saxpence." 

"Wull, tak an° a saxpence; it is written noo, — seven 
shillin'." 

She nodded, and began packing up the flounders. 

" Will you make something on them at that price? " I 
asked her. 

" Wull, I'll mak me money back," she replied ; but her 
eyes twinkled, and I fancy she had got a very good bar- 
gain, as bargains go in Newhaven ; it being thought there 
a good day's work to clear three shillings, — a pitiful sum, 
when a woman, to earn it, must trudge from Newhaven to 
Edinburgh (two miles) with a hundred pounds of fish on 
her back, and then toil up and down Edinburgh hills sell- 
ing it from door to door. One shilling on every pound is 
the auctioneer's fee. He has all the women's names in 
his book, and it is safe to trust them ; they never seek to 
cheat, or even to put off paying. ' ' They 'd rather pay 
than not," the blue-eyed auctioneer said to me. " Thej^'re 
the honestest folks i' the warld." 

As the last group was dispersing, one old woman, evi- 
dently in a state of fierce anger, approached and poured 



GLINTS IN AULD REEKIE. 193 

out a torrent of Scotch as bewildering and as unintelli- 
gible to me as if it had been Chinese. Her companions 
gazed at her in astonishment ; presently they began to 
reply, and in a few seconds there was as fine a "rippet" 
going on as could have been heard in Cowgate in Tarn's 
day. At last a woman of near her own age sprang for- 
ward, and approaching her with a determined face, lifted 
her right hand with an authoritative gesture, and said in 
vehement indignation, which reminded me of Christie 
again,— 

" Keep 3'ersil, an' haud yer tongue, noo ! " 

"What is she saying?" I asked. u What is the 
matter?" 

" Eh, it is jist nathin' at a'," she replied. " She 's thet 
angry, she doesna knaw hersil." 

The faces of the Xewhaven women are full of beauty, 
even those of the old women : their blue eyes are bright 
and laughing, long after the sea wind and sun have tanned 
and shrivelled their skins and bleached their hair. Blue 
eyes and yellow hair are the predominant type ; but there 
are some faces with dark hazel eyes of rare beauty and 
very dark hair, — still more beautiful, — which, spite of its 
darkness, shows glints of red in the sun. The dark blue 
of their gowns and cloaks is the best color-frame and set- 
ting their faces could have ; the bunched fulness of the 
petticoat is saved from looking clumsy by being so short, 
and the cloaks are in themselves graceful garments. The 
walking in a bent posture, with such heavy loads on the 
back, has given to all the women an abnormal breadth of 
hip, which would be hideous in an}' other dress than their 
own. This is so noticeable that I thought perhaps the}* 
wore under their skirts, to set them out, a roll, such as is 
worn by some of the Bavarian peasants. But when I 
asked one of the women, she replied, — 

il Xa, na, jist the flannel ; a' tuckit." 

-< Tucked all the way up to the belt? " said I. 

'•Xa, na," laughing as if that were a foil}* never con- 
ceived of, — " na, na." And in a twinkling she whipped 
her petticoat high up, to show me the under petticoat, of 
the same heavy blue cloth, tucked only a few inches deep. 
Her massive hips alone were responsible for the strange 
contour of her figure. 

13 



194 SCOTLAXD AND ENGLAND. 

The last person to leave the wharf was a j'onng man 
with a creel of fish on his back. My friend the sailor 
glanced at him with contempt. 

14 There's the only man in all Scotland that 'ud be seen 
carryin' a creel o' fish on his back like a woman," said he. 
"He's na pride aboot him." 

' ; But why should n't men carry creels ? " I asked. "I'm 
sure it is very hard work for women." 

The sailor eyed me for a moment perplexedly, and then 
as if it were waste of words to undertake to explain self- 
evident propositions, resumed, — 

" He worked at it when he was a boy, with his mother ; 
an' now he 's no pride left. There 's the whole village been 
at him to get a barrow ; but he '11 not do 't. He 's na pride 
aboot him." 

What an interesting addition it would be to the statistics 
of foods eaten by different peoples to collect the statistics 
of the different foods with which pride's hunger is satisfied 
in different countries ! Its stomach has as many and op- 
posite standards as the human digestive apparatus. It is, 
like everything else, all and only a question of climate. 
Not a nabob anywhere who gets more daily satisfaction 
out of despising his neighbors than the Newhaven fisher- 
men do out of their conscious superiority to this poor soul, 
who lugs his fish in a basket on his back like a woman, 
and has " na pride aboot him." 

If I had had time and opportunity to probe one layer 
farther down in Newhaven society, no doubt I should have 
come upon something which even this pariah, the fish- 
carrying man, would scorn to be seen doing. 

After the last toiling fishwife had disappeared in the 
distance, and the wharf and the village had quieted down 
into sombre stillness, I drove to " The Peacock," and ate 
bread and milk in a room which, if it were not the very 
one in which Christie and her lover supped, at least looked 
out on the same sea they looked upon. And a very gray, 
ugly sea it was, too ; just such an one as used to stir 
Christie's soul with a heat of desire to spin out into it, 
and show the bo3~s she was without fear. On the stony 
beach below the inn a woman was spreading linen to dry. 
Her motions as she raised and bent, and raised and bent, 
over her task were graceful beyond measure. Scuds of 



GLINTS IX AULD REEKIE. 195 

rain-drops swept by now and then ; and she would stop her 
work, and straightening herself into a splendid pose, with 
one hand on her hip, throw back her head, and sweep the 
whole sky with her look, uncertain whether to keep on 
with her labor or not ; then bend again, and make greater 
haste than before. 

As I drove out of the village I found a knot of the 
women gossiping at a corner. The}' had gathered around 
a young wife, who had evidently brought out her babj- for 
the village to admire. It was dressed in very " braw at- 
tire " for Xewhaven, — snowy white, and embroidery, and 
blue ribbons. It was but four weeks old, and its tiny red 
face was nearly covered up by the fine clothes. I said to a 
white-haired woman in the group, — 

ts Do you recollect when it was all open down to the sea 
here, — before this second line of newer cottages was 
built?" 

She shook her head and replied, "I'm na so auld 's I 
luik ; my hair it wentit white — " After a second's pause, 
and turning her eyes out to sea as she spoke, she added, 
"A* 't once it wentit white." 

A silence fell on the group, and looks were exchanged 
between the women. I drove away hastily, feeling as one 
does who has unawares stepped irreverently on a grave. 
Many grief-stricken queens have trod the Scottish shores ; 
the centuries still keep their memoiy green, and their 
names haunt one's thoughts in every spot they knew. 
But more vivid to m}' memoiy than all these returns and 
returns the thought of the obscure fisher woman whose 
hair, from a grief of which the world never heard, "a' 't 
once wentit white." 



CHESTER STREETS. 

If it be true, as some poets think, that ever} T spot on 
earth is full of poetry, then it is certainty also true that 
each place has its own distinctive measure ; an indigenous 
metre, so to speak, in which, and in which only, its poetry 
will be truly set or sung. 

The more one reflects on this, in connection with the 
spots and places he has known best in the world, the truer 
it seems. Memories and impressions group themselves in 
subtle co-ordinations to prove it. There are surely woods 
which are like stately sonnets, and others of which the 
truth would best be told in tender lyrics ; brooks which are 
jocund songs, and mountains which are Odes to Immortal- 
ity. Of cities and towns it is perhaps even. truer than of 
woods and mountains ; certainly, no less true. For in- 
stance, it would be a bold poet who should attempt to set 
pictures of Rome in any strain less solemn than the epic ; 
and is it too strong a thing to say that only a foolish one 
would think of framing a Venice glimpse or memory in 
anything save dreamy songs, with dreamiest refrains? 
Endless vistas of reverie open to the imagination once en- 
tered on the road of this sort of fancy, — reveries which 
play strange pranks with both time and place, endow the 
dreamer with a sort of post facto second sight, and leave 
him, when suddenly roused, as lost as if he had been 
asleep for a century. For sensations of this kind Chester 
is a " hede and chefe cyte." Simply to walk its streets 
is to step to time and tune of ballads ; the very air about 
one's ears goes lilting with them ; the walls ring ; the gates 
echo ; choruses rollic round corners, — ballads, always 
ballads, or, if not a ballad, a pla} r , none the less lively, — a 
play with pageants and delightful racket. 



CHESTER STREETS. 197 

Such are the measure and metre to-clay of "The Cyte of 
Legyons, that is Chestre in the marches of Englonde, to- 
wards Wales, betwegne two armes of the see, that bee 
named Dee and Mersee. Thys cyte in tyme of Britons 
was hede and chefe cyte of Venedocia, that is North 
Wales. Thys cyte in Brytyshe speech bete Carthleon, 
Chestre in Englyshe, and Cyte of Legyons also. For 
there laye a wynter, the legyons that Julius Cassar sent to 
wyne Irloncle. And after, Claudius Caesar sent legyons 
out of the cyte for to wynn the Islands that bee called 
Orcades. Thys cyte hath plenty of cyne land, of corn, of 
flesh, and specya% of samon. Tlrys cyte receyveth grate 
marchandj'se and sendeth out also. Northumbres de- 
stroyed this cyte but Elfleda Lady of Mercia byldecl it 
again and made it mouch more." 

This is what was written of Chester, more than six hun- 
dred years ago, by one Ranulph Higden, a Chester Abbey 
monk, — him who wrote those old miracle plays, except 
for which we very like had never had such a thing as a 
play at all, and William Shakspeare had turned out no 
better than man} 1- another Stratford man. 

All good Americans who reach England go to Chester. 
The}' go to see the cathedral, and to buy old Queen Anne 
furniture. The cathedral is very good in its wa}', the way 
of all cathedrals, and the old Queen Anne furniture is now 
quite well made ; but it is a marvel that either cathedral or 
shop can long hold a person away from Chester streets. 
One cannot go amiss in them ; at each step he is, as it 
were, button-holed by a gable, an arch, a pavement, a 
door-sill, a sign, or a gate with a story to tell. A story, 
indeed? A hundred, or more; and if am'body doubts 
them, or has \>y reason of old age, or over-occupation with 
other matters, got them confused in his mind, all he has to 
do is to step into a public library, which is kept in a very 
private wa} T , in a b^y-street, b} r two aged Cestrian citizens 
and a parish bo} T . Here, if he can convince these vener- 
able Cestrians of his respectabilit}", he may go a-junketing 
by himself in that delicious feast of an old book, the 
" Vale-Royale" of England, published in London in 1656, 
and written, I believe, a half-century or so earlier. 

Never was any bit of country more praised than this 
beautiful Chester County, ' ' pleasant and abounding in 



198 SCOTLAND AND ENGLAND. 

plenteousness of all things needful and necessaiy for man's 
use, insomuch that it merited and had the name of the 
Vale-Royale of England." 
The old writer continues : — 

" The ayr is very wholesome, insomuch that the people of the 
Country are seldome infected with Diseases or Sicknesses ; neither 
do they use the help of the Physicians nothing so much as in 
other countries. For when any of them are sick they make 
him a Posset and tye a kerchief on his head, and if that will not 
amend him, then God be merciful to him! " 

And of the river Dee, — 

11 To which water no man can express how much this ancient 
city hath been beholden; nay, I suppose if I should call it the 
Mother, the Nurse, the Maintainer, the Advancer and Preserver 
thereof, I should not greatly ewe." 

And again, of the shifting " sands o' Dee," this ancient 
and devout man, taking quite another view than that of 
the thoughtless or pensive lyrists, later, saj's, — 

" The changing and shifting of the water gave some occasion 
to the Britons in that Infancy of the Christian Religion to at- 
tribute some divine honor and estimation to the said water: 
though I cannot believe that to beany cause of the name of it." 

His pious deduction from the exceeding beaut} T of the 
situation of the city is that it is " worthy, according to the 
Eye, to be called a city guarded with Watch of Holy and 
Religious men, and through the Mercy of our Saviour al- 
ways fenced and fortified with the merciful assistance of 
the Almighty." To keep it thus guarded, the monks of 
Vale-Royale did their best. Witness the terms in which 
their grant was couched : — 

" All the mannours, churches, lands and tenements aforesaid, 
in free pure and perpetual alms forever; with Homages, Rents, 
Demesnes, Villenages, Services of Free Holders and Bond, with 
Villains and their Families, Advowsons, Wards, Reliefs, Es- 
cheates, Woods, Plains, Meadows, Pastures, Wayes, Pathes, 
Heaths, Turfs, Forests, Waters, Ponds, Parks, Fishing, Mills 
in Granges, Cottages within Borough and without, and in 
all other places with all Easments, Liberties, Franchises and 
Free Customs any way belonging to the aforesaid Mannours, 
Churches, lands and tenements." 



CHESTER STREETS. 199 

Plainly, if the devil or any of his followers were caught 
in the Vale-Royale, they could be legally ejected as tres- 
passers. 

He was not, however, without an e}*e to worldly state, 
this devout writer, for he speaks with evident pride of the 
fine show kept up by the mayor of Chester : — 

" The Estate that the Mayor of Chester keepeth is great. For 
he hath both Sword Bearer and Mace Bearer Sergeants, with 
their silver maces, in as good and decent order as in any other 
city in England. His housekeeping accordingly; but not so 
chargeable as in all other cities, because all thing are better 
cheap there. . . . He remaineth, most part of the day at a 
place called the Pendice which is a brave place builded for the 
purpose at the high Crosse under St. Peters Church, and in the 
middest of the city, of such a sort that a man may stand therein 
and see into the markets or four principal streets of the city." 

Nevertheless, there was once a ma} T or of Chester who 
did not see all he ought to have seen in the principal 
streets of the city ; for his own daughter, out pla3~ing ball 
" with other maids, in the summer time, in Pepur Street," 
stole away from her companions, and ran off with her 
sweetheart, through one of the city gates, at the foot of 
that street, which gate the enraged ma}'or ordered closed 
up forever, as if that would do airy good ; and some sharp- 
tongued and sensible Cestrian immediately phrased the 
illogical action in a proverb : ' ' When the daughter is 
stolen, shut the Pepur gate." This sajing is to be heard 
in Chester to this da} T , and is no doubt lineal ancestor of 
our own broader apothegm, " When the mare's stolen, 
lock the stable." 

There are many lively stories about mayors of Chester. 
There was a mayor in 1617 who made a very learned 
speech to King James, when he rode in through East Gate, 
with all the train soldiers of the city standing in order, 
" each company with their ensigns in seemly sort," the ar- 
ray stretching up both sides of East Gate Street. This 
mayor's name was Charles Fitton. He delivered his speech 
to the king; presented to him a "standing cup with a 
cover double gilt, and therein a hundred jacobins of gold ; " 
likewise delivered to him the city's sword, and afterward 
bore it before him, in the procession. But when King 



200 SCOTLAND AND ENGLAND. 

James proposed, in return for all these civilities, to make 
a knight of him, Charles Fitton sturdily refused ; which 
was a thing so strange for its day and generation that one 
is instantly possessed by a fire of curiosity to know what 
Charles Fitton's reasons could have been for such contempt 
of a knight's title. No doubt there is a story hanging 
thereb} r , — something to do with a lady-love, not unlikely ; 
and a fine ballad it would make, if one but knew it. The 
records, however, state only the bare fact. 
• Then there was, a hundred years later than this, a man 
who got to be nm'or of Chester by a very strange chance. 
He was a ribbon-weaver, in a small way, kept a shop in 
Shoemaker's Row, and lived in a little house backing on 
the Falcon Inn. All of a sudden he blossomed out into a 
rich silk-mercer ; bought a fine estate just outside the city, 
built a grand house, and generally assumed the airs and 
manners of a dignitary. As is the way of the world now, 
so then : people soon took him at his surface showing, for- 
got all about the mystery of his sudden wealth, and pres- 
ently made him mayor of Chester. Afterward it came 
out, though never in such fashion that anything was done 
about it, how the ma3'or got his monej*. Just before the 
nrysterious rise in his fortunes, a great London banking- 
house had been robbed of a large sum of mone} T b}* one of 
its clerks, who ran away, came to Chester, and went into 
hiding at the Falcon Inn. He was tracked and overtaken 
late one night. Hearing his pursuers on the stairs, he 
sprang from his bed and threw the treasure bags out of 
the window, plump into the ribbon-weaver's back-yard ; 
where the disappointed constables naturally never thought 
of looking, and went back to London much chagrined, 
carrying only the man, and no mone3 T . None of the monej" 
having been found on the robber, he escaped conviction, 
but subsequently, for another offence, was tried, convicted, 
and executed. I take it for granted that it must have 
been he who told in his last hours what he did with the 
mone}^ bags : for certainly no one else knew, — that is, no 
one else except Mr. Samuel Jarvis, the ribbon-weaver, who, 
much astonished, had picked them up before daylight, the 
morning after they had been thrown into his back-yard. 
It is certain that he kept his mouth shut, and proceeded to 
turn the money to the best possible account in the shortest 



CHESTER STREETS. 201 

possible time. But an evil fate seemed to attach to the 
dishonestly gotten riches ; Jams dying without issue, bis 
estate all went to a man named Doe, " a gardener, at 
Greg's Pit," whose sons and grandsons spent the last 
penny of it in riotous living. So there is now " nothing 
to show for " that mone}', for the stealing of which one 
man was tried for his life, and another man made mayor 
of Chester ; which would all come in capitally in a ballad, 
if a ballad-monger chose. 

Of the famous Chester Rows, nobody has ever yet con- 
trived to give a description intelligible to one who bad not 
seen them. The more familiarly they are known, the more 
fantastic and bewildering they seem, and the less one is 
sure how to speak of them. Whether it is that the side- 
walk goes upstairs, or the front seconcl-stoiy bedroom 
comes down into the street ; whether the street itself be in 
the basement or the cellar, or the sidewalk be on the roofs 
of the houses ; — where any one of the mall begins or leaves 
off, it would be a courageous narrator that tried to ex- 
plain. They appear to have been as much of a puzzle two 
hundred years ago as to-day ; for the devout old chronicler 
of the Vale-Royale, essaying to describe them, wrote the 
following paragraph, which, delicious as it is to those who 
know Chester, I think must be a stumbling-block and fool- 
ishness to those who do not. He says there is " a singu- 
lar property of praise to this city, whereof I know not the 
like of any other : there be towards the street fair rooms, 
both for shops and dwelling-houses, to which there is 
rather a descent than an equal height with the floor or 
pavement of the street. Yet the principal dwelling-houses 
and shops for the chiefest Trades are mounted a story 
higher, and before the Doors and Entries a continued 
Row, on either side the street, for people to pass to and fro 
all along the said houses, out of all annoj-ance of Rain, or 
other foul weather, with stairs fairly built, and neatly 
maintained to step down out of those Rowes into the 
open streets : almost at every second house : and the said 
Rowes built over the head with such of the Chambers and 
Rooms for the most part as are the best rooms in every 
one of the said houses. 

" It approves itself to be of most excellent use, both for 
dry and easy passage of all sorts of people upon their neces- 



202 SCOTLAND AND ENGLAND. 

s'ary occasions, as also for the sending away, of all or the 
most Passengers on foot from the passage of the street, 
amongst laden and empty Carts, loaden and travelling 
Horses, lumbering Coaches, Beer Carts, Beasts, Sheep, 
Swine, and all annoyances, which what a confused trouble 
it makes in other cities, especially where great stirring is, 
there 's none that can be ignorant." 

He also suggests another advantage of this arrange- 
ment, which seems by no means unlikely to have been 
part of its original reason for being ; namely, that " when 
the enemy entered they might avoid the danger of the 
Horsemen, and might annoy the Enemies as they passed 
through the Streets." Probably in this writer's day the 
marvel of the construction of the Rows was even greater 
than it is now ; in man}' instances the first story was exca- 
vated out of solid rock, so you began by going downstairs 
at the outset. These first stories of the ancient Cestrians 
are beneath the cellars of the Rows to-day ; and every now 
and then, in deepening a vault or cellar-way, workmen 
come on old Roman altars, built there by the " Legyons " 
of Julius, or Claudius Caesar, dedicated to "Nymphs and 
Fountains," or other genii of the day ; baths, too, with 
their pillars and perforated tiles still in place, as the}' were 
in the days when cleanly and luxurious Roman soldiers 
took Turkish baths there, after hot victories. Knowing 
about these lower strata adds a weird charm to the fasci- 
nation of strolling along in the balconies above, looking in, 
now at a jeweller's window, now at a smart haberdashery 
shop, now at some neat housekeeper's bedroom window, 
now into a mysterious chink-like passage-way winding off 
into the heart of the building; and then, perhaps, presto! 
descending a staircase a few feet, to another tier of simi- 
lar shop- windows, domiciles, garret alleys, and dormer- 
window bazars ; and the next thing, plump down again, 
ten feet or so more, into the very street itself. Indeed are 
they, as the " Vale-Roy ale " says, " a singular property of 
praise to this city, whereof I know not the like of any 
other." 

One manifest use and enjoyment of this medley of in 
and out, up and down, above and below, balconies, base- 
ments, attics, dormer windows, gables, and casements, the 
old chronicler failed to mention, but there can never have 



CHESTER STREETS. 203 

been a day or a generation which has not discovered it, 
and that is the convenient overlooking of all that goes on 
in the street below. What rare and comfortable nooks for 
the spying on processions, and all manner of shows and 
spectacles ! To sit snug in one's best chamber, ten feet 
above the street, ten feet out into it, with windows looking 
up and down the highway, — what vantage it must have 
been in the clays when the Miracle Plays went wheeling 
along from street to street, played on double scaffolded 
carts ; the players attiring themselves on the lower scaf- 
fold, while the play was progressing on the upper ! They 
began to do this in Chester in the year of our Lord 1268. 
There were generally in use at one time twentj^-four of 
the wheeled stages ; as soon as one play was over, its 
stage was wheeled along to the next street, and another 
took its place. The plays were called Mysteries, and were 
devised for the giving of instruction in the Old and New 
Testament, which had been so long sealed books to the 
people. Luther gave them his sanction, saying, " Such 
spectacles often do more good and produce more impres- 
sion than sermons." 

The old chronicles are full of quaint and interesting 
entries in regard to these plays. The different trades and 
guilds of the city represented different acts in the holy 
dramas : — 

The Barkers and Tanners, The Fall of Lucifer. 
Drapers and Hosiers, The Creation of the World. 
Drawers of Dee and Water Leaders, JVoe and his 
Shij^pe. 

Barbers, Wax Chandlers, and Leeches, Abraham and 
Isaac. 

Cappers, Wire Drawers, and Pinners, Balak and Ba- 
laam with Moses. 

Wrights, Slaters, Tylers, Daubers, and Thatchers, The 
Nativity. 

In 1574 these plays were played for the last time. 
There had been several attempts before to suppress them. 
One Chester mayor, Henry Hardware by name, being a 
" godly and zealous man, caused the gyauntes in the mid- 
somer show to be broken up, not to go ; and the devil in 
his feathers he put awaye, and the caps, and the canes, 
and dragon and the naked boys." 



204 SCOTLAND AND ENGLAND. 

But it was reserved for another mayor, Sir John Savage, 
Knight, to have the honor of finally putting an end to the 
pageants. "Sir John Savage, knight, being Mayor of 
Chester, which was the laste time they were played, and 
we praise God, and praye that we see not the like profana- 
tion of hol} T Scriptures, but O, the mercie of God for the 
time of our ignorance ! " sa}"s an old histoiy, written in 
1595. 

At intervals between these pious suppressions, carnal 
and pleasure-loving persons made great efforts to restore 
the plays ; and there are some very curious accounts of 
expenditures made in Chester, under mayors less godly 
than Hardware and Savage, for the rehabilitation of some 
of the old properties of the sacred pageants : — 

" For finding all the materials with the workmanship of the 
four great giants, all to be made new, as neere as may be, lyke 
as they were before, at five pounds a giant, the least that can 
be, and four men to carry them at two shillings and sixpence 
each." 

These redoubtable giants, which could not be made 
at less than five pounds apiece, were constructed out of 
"hoops, deal boards, nails, pasteboard, scale-board, 
paper of various sorts, buckram size cloth, old sheets for 
their bodies, sleeves and shirts, tinsille, tinfoil, gold and 
silver leaf, colors of different kinds, and glue in abun- 
dance." Last, not least, came the item, "For arsknick 
to put into the paste to save the giants from being eaten 
by the rats, one shilling and fourpence." 

It is at first laughable to think of a set of Qitj fathers 
summing up such accounts as these for a paper babj- show, 
but upon second thought the question occurs whether city 
funds are any better administered in these clays. The 
paper giants, feathered devils, and dragons were cheaper 
than champagne suppers and stationery now-a-da3 T s in 
" hede and chefe" cities. 

When the Mystery Plays were finally forbidden, it seemed 
dull times for a while in Chester ; but at last the people 
contrived an ingenious resuscitation of the old amusements 
under new names, and with new themes, to which nobody 
could object. They dramatized old stories, legends, his- 
tories of kings, and the like. The story of JEneas and 



CHESTER STREETS. 205 

Queen Dido was one of the first played. No doubt all the 
"gyauntes" and hobble-de-horses which had not been 
eaten up by rats and moths came in as effectively in the 
second dispensation as in the first. The only one of the 
later plays of which an account has been preserved was 
pla\'ed in 1608, in honor of the oldest son of James L, by 
the sheriff of Chester, who himself wrote a flaming account 
of it. He says : — 

" Zeal produced it, love devized it, boyes performed it, men 
beheld it, and none but fools dispraised it. . . . The chiefest 
part of this people-pleasing spectacle consisted in three Bees, 
that is, Boyes, Beastes, and Bels." 

Allegoiy, mythology, music, fireworks, and ground and 
lofty tumbling were jumbled together in a fine way, in the 
sheriff's show. Env}' was on horseback with a wreath of 
snakes around her head ; Plenty, Peace, Fame, and Joy 
were personated ; Mercury came down from heaven with 
wings, in a cloud; a " wheele of fire burning very cun- 
ningly, with other fireworks, mounted the Crosse b_y the 
assistance of ropes, in the midst of heavenly melody ; " 
and, to top off with, a grotesque figure climbed up to the top 
of the "Crosse," and stood on his head, with his feet in the 
air, " very dangerously and wonderfully to the view of the 
beholders, and casting fireworks very clelightfull." Truly, 
the sheriff's language seems hardly too strong, when he 
says that none but fools dispraised his spectacle. 

These secular shows never attained the popularity of the 
old Mystery Plays. That mysterious halo of attraction 
which always invests the forbidden undoubtedly heightened 
the reputed charm of the never-more-to-be-seen sacred 
pageants, and led people to continually depreciate the 
value of all entertainments offered as substitutes for them. 
Probably in the midst of the heavenly melodies and " fire- 
works very clelightfull," at the sheriff's grand show, old 
men went about shaking their heads regretfully, and say- 
ing, " Ah, but 3*ou should have seen the gj'aunts we used 
to have forty years ago, and the way they pla}~ed the Fall 
of Lucifer in 1574; there's never been anything like it 
since ; " and immediately all the young people who had 
never seen a Miracle Play began to be full of dissatisfied 
wonder as to what they were like. 



206 SCOTLAND AND ENGLAND. 

But what the shows and pageants lacked in the early 
clays of the seventeenth century, grand processions went a 
long way towards making up. It is evident that Chester peo- 
ple never missed an occasion for turning out in fine array ; 
and there being always somebod}^ who took the trouble to 
write a full account of the parade, we of to-da} r know al- 
most as much about it as if we had been on the spot. The 
old chronicles in the Chester public library are running over 
with quaint and ga} T stories of such doings as the following : 

" Came to Chester, being Saturday, the Duchess of Tremoyle, 
from France, mother-in-law to the Lord Strange: and all the 
Gentry of Cheshier, Flintshier, and Denbighshier went to meet 
her at Hoole's Heath, with the Earl of Derby ; being at least six 
hundred horse. All the Gentle Men of the artelery yard lately 
erected in Chester, met her in Cow Lane, in very stately man- 
ner, all with greate white and blew fethers, and went before 
her chariot, in march, to the Bishop's Pallas, and making a 
yard, let her thro the middest, and then gave her three volleys 
of shot, and so returned to their yard. ... So many knights, 
esquires, and Gentle Men never were in Chester, no, not to meet 
King James when he went to Chester." 

This Cow Lane is now called Frodsham Street ; and on 
one of its corners is the building in which William Penn, 
in his day, preached more than once, setting forth doc- 
trines which the Duchess of Tremoyle would have much 
disrelished in her da} T , as would also the " arteleiy Gentle 
Men " with their ' ' greate white and blew fethers." King 
James himself is said to have once dropped in at this 
Quaker meeting-house when Penn was preaching, and to 
have sat, attentive, through the entire discourse. 

And so we come down through the centuries, from the 
pasteboard "gyaunt" and glued dragon, winged Mercury 
with fire-wheel, Duchess of Tremoyle with her plumed 
horsemen, to the grim but gentle Quaker, holding feathers 
pernicious, plays deadly, and permitting to the people 
nothing but plain yea and nay. Of all this, and worlds 
more like it, and gaj T er and wilder, — sadder, too, — is the 
Chester air so brimful that, as I said in the beginning, it 
seems perpetually to go lilting about one's ears. 

Leaving the librar}-, with its quaint and fascinating old 
records, and turning aside at intervals from the more 
ancient landmarks of the streets to observe the ways and 



CHESTER STREETS. 207 

conditions of the Cestrians now, the traveller is no less 
repaid. Every rod of the sidewalk is a stud}' for its present 
as well as for its past. The venders are a guild by them- 
selves, as much to-day as they were in the sixteenth cen- 
tuiy. They build up their stuffs, their old chairs, chests, 
brooms, crockery and tinware, in stacks of confusion, in 
shelf-like balconies, on beams hanging overhead and in 
corners and nooks underfoot, all along the most ancient 
of the Rows. It is a piece of good luck to walk past half 
a dozen doors there without jostling something on the 
right or left, and bringing down a clattering pile on one's 
heels. From shadow}- recesses, men and women eager 
for trade dart out, eying the stranger sharply. They are 
connoisseurs in customers, if in nothing else, the Cestrian 
dealers of to-day. The} 7 know at a glance who will give 
ten shillings and sixpence for a cream jng without any 
nose, and with a big crack in one side, on the bare chance 
of its being old Welsh. There is much excuse for their 
spreading out their goods over the highway, as they do, 
for the shops themselves are closets, — six by eight, eight 
by ten ; ten by twelve is a spacious mart, in comparison 
with the average. Deprived of the outside nooks between 
the pillars of the arcade, the dealers would be sorely put 
to it for room. It is becoming, however, a disputed ques- 
tion whether the renting of these shops includes any right 
to the covered ways in front of them ; and there is great 
anxiety among the inhabitants of the more dilapidated 
portions of the Rows in consequence. 

"There's a deespute with the corporation, mem, as to 
whether we hown the stalls or not," said an energetic 
furniture-wife (if fish-wife, why not furniture- wife ?) to me 
one day, as I was laughingly steering a cautious passage 
among her shaky pyramids of fourth or twentieth hand 
furniture. "It's lasted a while now, an' they've not 
forced us to give 'em hup as yet ; but I 'm afeard they 
may bring it about," she added, with the dogged humility 
of her class. " They Ve everything their own way, — the 
corporation." 

It is worth while to take a turn down some of the crevice- 
like alleys in these Rows, and see where the people live ; 
see also where the nobility gets part of its wherewithal to 
eat, drink, and be clothed. 



208 SCOTLAND AND ENGLAND. 

Often there is to be seen at the far end of these crevices 
a point of sunlight ; like the gleaming point of light seen 
ahead, in going through a ray less tunnel. This betokens 
a tiny- court-yard in the rear. These court-yards are al- 
ways well worth seeing. They are paved, sometimes with 
tiles evidently hundreds of years old. The different prop- 
erties of the dozens of families living in tenements opening 
on the court are arranged around its sides, apparently 
each family keeping scrupulously to its own little hand's- 
breaclth of room ; frequently a tiny flower-bed, or a single 
plant in a pot, gives a gleam of cheer to the place. In 
such a court-yard as this, I found, one morning, a yellow- 
haired, blue-eyed little maid, scrubbing away for dear life, 
with a broom and soap-suds, on the old tiles. She was 
not over nine years old ; her bare legs and feet were pink 
and chubby-, and she had a smile like a sunbeam. 

" I saw the sun shining in here so brightly that I 
walked up the alley- to see how it got in," I said to her. 

" Yes, mem," she said, with a courtesy-. " It do shine 
in here beautiful." And she looked up at the sky r , smiling. 

" Have you lived here long? " I asked. 

" About nine months, mem. I 'm only- in service, mem," 
she continued with a deprecating courtesy, modestly- anx- 
ious to disclaim the honor of having any r proprietary right 
in the place. 

"We've five rooms, mem," she went on. "It's a 
very nice lodging, if y-ou 'd like to see it." And she threw 
open a door into an infinitesimal parlor, out of which 
opened a still smaller dining-room, lighted only by a win- 
clow in the parlor door. There were two bedrooms above, 
reached by a nearly- upright stairway, not over two feet 
wide. The fifth room was a " beautiful washroom," which 
the little maiden exhibited with even more pride than she 
had shown the parlor. "It's three families has it to- 
gether, mem," she explained. " It 's a great thing to get 
a washroom. And we 've a coal-hole, too, mem," she said 
eagerly- ; "you passed it, coming up." And she stepped a 
few paces down the alley, and threw open a door into a ray- 
less place possibly- five by- seven feet in size. " It used to 
be a bedroom, mem, to the opposite house ; but it's empty 
now, so we gets it for coal." I could not take my T eyes 
from the child's face, as she prattled and pattered along. 



CHESTER STREETS. 209 

She looked like an angel. Her face shone with loyalty, 
pride, and happiness. I envied the poverty-stricken dwell- 
ers in this court their barefooted handmaiden, and would 
have taken her thjen and there, if I could, into my own 
service for her lifetime. As we stood talking, another door 
opened, and a grizzled old head popped out. 

"Good-morning, mem," said the child cheerily, making 
the same respectful courtesy she had made to me. " 1 'm 
just showin' the lady what nice lodgin's we 've 'ere in the 
court." 

" Humph," said the old woman gruffly, as she tottered 
out, leaving her door wide open; "they're nothin' to 
boast of." 

Her own lodging certainty was not. It was literally 
little more than a chamber in the wall : it had no window, 
except one small square pane above the door. You could 
hardly stand upright in it, and not much more than turn 
around. The walls were hung full : household utensils, 
clothes, even her two or three books, were hung up b}^ 
strings ; there being only room for one tiny table, besides 
the stove. In one corner stood a step-ladder, which led 
up through a hole in the ceiling to the crann}^ overhead in 
which she slept. This was all the old woman had. She 
lived here alone, and she paid to the Duke of Westminster 
two shillings and sixpence a week for the rent of the place. 
"It's dear at the rent," she said ; " but it 's a respectable 
place, an' I think a deal o' that." And she sighed. 

The name of the Duke of Westminster and the value of 
that two and sixpence to his grace meant more to me that 
morning than it would have done twent3 r -four hours earlier ; 
for on the previous afternoon we had visited his palace, 
the famous Eator^Hall. We bad walked there for weary 
hours over marble floors, under frescoed domes, through 
long lines of statues, of pictures, of stained-glass windows, 
hangings, carvings, and rare relics and trophies innumera- 
ble. We had seen the duchess's window balcony, one 
waving mass of 3<ellow musk. " Her ladyship is very fond 
of musk. It is alwa} T s to be kept flowering at her window," 
we were told. 

We had walked also through a glass corridor three 
hundred and seventj-five j^ards long, draped with white 
clematis and heliotrope on one side, and on the other 

14 



210 SCOTLAND AND ENGLAND. 

banked high with geraniums, carnations, and all manner 
of flowers. Opening at intervals in these banks of flowers 
were doors into other conservatories : one was filled chiefly 
with rare orchids, like an enchanted aviary of humming- 
birds, arrested on the wing ; gold and white, purple and 
white, brown and gold, green, snowy white, orange ; some 
of them as large as a fleur-de-lis. Another house was 
filled with ferns and palms, green, luxuriant, like a bit of 
tropical forest brought across seas for his grace's pleasure. 
The most superb sight of all was the lotus house. Cleo- 
patra herself might have flushed with pleasure at beholding 
it. A deep tank, sixty feet long, and twenty wide, filled 
with white and blue and pink blossoms, floating, swaying, 
lolling on the dark water ; while, seemingly to uphold the 
glass roof canop}ing this lotus-decked sea, rose slender 
columns, wreathed with thunbergia vines in full bloom, 3-el- 
low, orange, and white ; the glass walls of the building 
were set thick and high with maiden-hair and other rare 
ferns, interspersed at irregular intervals with solid masses 
of purple or white flowers. The spell of the place, of its 
warm, languid air, was beyond words : it was bewildering. 

All this being vivid in my mind, I started at hearing his 
grace's name from the old woman's lips. 

" So these houses belong to the Duke of Westminster, 
do the} T ? " I replied. 

"Yes, 'ee's the 'ole o' 't," she answered ; " an' a power 
o' mone}' it brings 'im in, considerin' its size. 'Ee's big 
rents in this town. Mebbe ye 've bin out t' 'is 'all? It's 
a gran' sight, I 'm told. I 've never seen it." 

I was minded then to tell about the duke's flowers. It 
would have been only a bit of a fairy stoiy to the little 
maid, a bright spot in her still bright horizons ; but I fore- 
bore, for the sake of the old woman's soul, alreacl} - enough 
wrung and embittered by the long strain of her hard lot, 
and its contrast with that of her betters, without having 
that contrast enforced by a vivid picture of the duke's hot- 
houses. My own memoiy of them was darkened forever, 
— unreasonably so, perhaps ; but the antithesis came too 
suddenly and soon for me ever to separate the pictures. 

The archaeologist in Chester will frequently be lured 
from its streets to its still more famous walls. This side 
Eome there is no such piece of Roman masomy work, to 



CHESTER STREETS. 211 

be seen. Here, indeed, is the air full of ballad measures, 
to which one must step, if he go his way thinking at all. 
The four great gates, north, south, east, and west, — 
three kept by earls, and only one owned by the citizens ; 
the lesser posterns, with commoner names, born of their 
different sorts of traffic, or the fords to which they led ; 
the towers and turrets, fought over, lost and won, and won 
and lost, trod by centuries of brave fighters whose names 
live forever ; bridgeways and arches in their own succes- 
sions, of as noble lineage as any lineages of men, — of 
such are the walls of Chester. They surround the old 
city ; are nearly two miles in length, and were originally 
of the width prescribed in the ancient Roman manual of 
Vitruvius, " that two armed men may pass each other 
without impediment." There are many places, now, how- 
ever, which would by no means come up to that standard ; 
Nature having usurped much space with her various 
growths, and time having been chipping away at them as 
well. In fact, on some portions of the wall, there is only 
a narrow grassy footpath, such as might wind around in a 
village churchyard. To come up by hoary stone stairs, out 
of the bustling street, atop of the wall, and out on such a 
bit of footpath as this, with an outlook over the Rood Eye 
meadow and off toward the region of the old Welsh castles, 
is a fine early-morning treat in Chester. Some of the 
towers are now sunk to the ignoble uses of heterogeneous 
museums. Old women have the keys, and for a fee admit 
curious people to the ancient chambers and keeps, where, 
after having the satisfaction of standing where kings have 
stood, and looking off over fields where kings' battles were 
fought, they can gaze at glass cases full of curiosities and 
relics of one sort and another, sometimes of an incredible 
worthlessness. In the ifower known as King Charles's 
Tower, from the fact of Charles I. having stood there, 
on the 27th of September, 1645, overlooking the to him 
luckless battle of Rowton Moor, is the most miscella- 
neous collection of odds and ends ever offered to public 
gaze. A very old woman keeps the key of this tower, and 
is herself b} r no means the least of the curiosities in it. 
She was born in Chester, and recollects well when all the 
space outside the old walls, which is now occupied by the 
modern city, was chiefly woods ; she used to go, in her 



212 SCOTLAND AND ENGLAND. 

childhood, to play and to gather flowers in them. The 
fact that King Charles once looked through the window of 
this turret has grown, by a sort of geometrical ratio relative 
to the number of years she has been reiterating the state- 
ment, into a colossally disproportionate place in her mind. 

" The king, mem, stood just where } r ou 're standin' now," 
she says over and over and over, in a mechanical manner, 
as long as } T ou remain in the tower. I wondered if she 
said it all night, in her sleep ; and if, if one were to spend 
a whole day in the tower, she would never stop saying it. 
She was an enthusiastic show-woman of her little store ; 
undismayed by any amount of indifference on the part of 
her listeners. " 'Ere 's a face you know, mem, I dare 
sav," producing from one corner of the glass case a 
cheap newspaper picture, much soiled, of General Grant. 
4i 'Ee was in this tower last summer, and 'ee was much 
hinterested." 

Next to General Grant's portrait came ' ' a ring snake 
from Kentucky." "It's my brother, mem, brought that 
over : twenty years ago, 'ee was in Hamerica. You must 
undustand the puttin' of 'em hup better than we do, mem, 
for 'ere 's these salamanders was only put hup two years 
ago, an' the} T 've quite gone a' ready, in that time." 

She had a statuette of King Charles, Cromwell's chap- 
lain's broth bowl, a bit of a bedquilt of Queen Anne's, a 
black snake from Australia, a fine-tooth comb from Africa, 
a tattered fifty-cent piece of American paper currency, and 
a string of shell money from the South Sea Islands, all 
arranged in close proximity. Taking up the bit of Amer- 
ican currency, she held it out toward us, saying inquiringly, 
" Hextinct now, mem, I believe? " I think she can hardly 
have recovered even }'et from the bewilderment into which 
she was thrown by our convulsive laughter and ejaculated 
reply, " Oh, no ! Would that it were ! " 

In a clear day can be seen from this tower, a dozen or 
so miles to the south, the ruins of a castle built by Earl 
Randel Blundeville. He was the Earl Randel of whom 
Roger Lacy, constable of Cheshire in 1204, made a famous 
rescue, once on a time. The earl, it seems, was in a des- 
perate strait, besieged in one of his castles by the Welsh ; 
perhaps in this veiy castle. Roger Lacy, hearing of the 
earl's situation, forthwith made a muster of all the tramps, 



CHESTER STREETS. 213 

beggars, and rapscallions he could find, — "a tumultuous 
rout," saj'S the chronicle, "of loose, disorderly, and dis- 
solute persons, players, minstrels, shoemakers and the 
like, — and marched speedily towards the enemy." The 
Welsh, seeing so great a multitude coming, raised their 
siege and fled ; and the earl, thus delivered, showed his 
gratitude to Constable Roger by conferring upon him per- 
petual authority over the loose, idle persons in Cheshire ; 
making the office hereditary in the Lacy familj'. A thank- 
less dignity, one would suppose, at best ; by no means a 
sinecure, at any time, and during the season of the Mid- 
summer Fairs a terrible responsibility : it being the law of 
the land that during those fairs the city of Chester was 
for the space of one month a free city of refuge for all 
criminals, of whatsoever degree ; in token of which a 
glove was hung out at St. Peter's Church, on the first day 
of the fairs. 

There is another good tale of Roger Lacy's prowess. 
He seems to have been a roving fighter, for he once held 
a castle in Normandy, for King John, against the French, 
" with such gallantly that after all his victuals were spent, 
haA'ing been besieged almost a year, and man}' assaults of 
the enemy made, but still repulsed by him, he mounts his 
horse, and issues out of the castle with his troop into the 
middest of his enemies, chusing rather to die like a soldier, 
than to starve to death. He slew many of the enemy, but 
was at last with much difficult}' taken prisoner ; so he and 
his soldiers were brought prisoners to the King of France, 
where, by the command of the king, Roger Lacy was to 
be held no strict prisoner, for his great honesty and trust 
in keeping the Castle so gallantly. • . . King John's letter 
to Roger Lacy concerning the keeping of the said castle, 
you may see among the Norman writings put out by 
Andrew du Chesne, and printed at Paris in 1619." Of all 
of which, if no ballad have ever been written, it is certain 
that songs must have been sung b}' minstrels at the time ; 
and the name of the brave Roger's ladj'-love was well 
suited to minstrelsy, she being one Maud de Clare. Plain 
Roger Lacy and Maud de Clare ! The dullest fancy takes 
a leap at the sound of the two names. 

In the same old chronicle which gives these and many 
other narratives of Roger Lacy is the history of a singular, 



214 SCOTLAND AND ENGLAND. 

half-witted being, who was known in Vale-Royale, in the 
fifteenth century, as Nixon the Prophet. How much that 
the old records claim for him, in the wa} T of minute and 
minutely fulfilled prophecies, is to be set down to the 
score of ignorant superstition, it is hard now to say ; but 
there must have been some foundation in fact for the nar- 
rative. Robert Nixon was the son of a farmer in Cheshire 
County, and was born in the year 1467. His stupidity 
and ignorance were said to be "invincible." No efforts 
could make him understand anything save the care of 
cattle, and even in this he showed at times a brutish and 
idiotic cruelty. He had* a very rough, coarse voice, but 
said little, sometimes passing whole months without open- 
ing his lips to speak. He began very early to foretell 
events, and with an apparently preternatural accuracy. 
"When he was a lad, he was seen, one day, to abuse an ox 
belonging to his brother. To a person threatening to in- 
form his brother of this act, Robert replied that three days 
later his brother would not own the ox. Sure enough, on 
the next day a life inheritance came into the estate on 
which his brother was a tenant, and that ver} f ox was 
taken for the " heriot bond to the new owner." One of 
the abbey monks having displeased him, he exclaimed, — 

" When you the harrow come on high, 
Soon a raven's nest will be." 

The couplet was thought at the time to be simple non- 
sense ; but as it turned out, the last abbot of that monas- 
ter} 7 was named Harrow, and when the king suppressed 
the monastery he gave the domain to Sir Thomas Holcroft, 
whose crest was a raven. 

It was also one of Nixon's predictions that the two 
abbeys of Vale-Roj-ale and Norton should meet on Orton 
bridge and the thorn growing in the abbej 7 3-ard should be 
its door. 

When the abbeys were pulled down, in the time of the 
Reformation, stones taken from each of them were used in 
rebuilding that bridge ; and the thorn-tree was cut down, 
and placed as a barrier across the entrance to the abbe} r 
court, to keep the sheep from entering there. 

The most remarkable of Nixon's predictions or reve- 
lations was at the time of the battle on Bosworth Field 



CHESTER STREETS. 215 

between Richard III. and Henry VII. On that da} T , as he 
was driving a pair of oxen, he stopped suddenly, and with 
his whip pointing now one way, now another, cried aloud, 
" Now, Richard," "Now, Harry ! " At last he said, " Now, 
Harry, get over that ditch, and you gain the da}' ! " The 
ploughmen with him were greatly amazed, and related to 
many persons what had passed. When a courier came 
through the country announcing the result of the battle, he 
verified every word Nixon had said. 

This courier, when he returned to court, recounted Nix- 
on's predictions ; and King Henry was so impressed b} r 
them that he at once sent orders to have him brought to 
the palace. 

Before this messenger arrived, Nixon ran about like a 
madman, weeping and crying that the king was about 
sending for him, and that he must go to court to be 
starved to death. 

In a few days the royal messenger appeared. Nixon was 
turning the spit in his brother's kitchen. Just before the 
messenger came in sight, he shrieked out, " He is on the 
road ! He is coming for me ! I shall be starved ! " 

Lamenting loudly, he was carried away almost by force, 
and taken into the presence of the king, who tried him 
with various tests : among others, he hid a diamond ring, 
and commanded Nixon to find it ; but all the answer he got 
from the cunning varlet was, " He that hideth can find." 
The king caused all he said to be carefully noted and put 
down in writing ; gave him the run of the palace, and com- 
manded that no one should molest or offend him in any 
way. 

One day, when the king was setting off on a hunt, Nixon 
ran to him, crying and begging to be allowed to go too ; 
saying that his time had come now, and he would be 
starved if he were left behind. To humor his whim and 
ease his fears, the king gave him into the especial charge 
and keeping of one of the chief officers of the court. The 
officer, in turn, to make sure that no ill befell the poor 
fellow, locked him up in one of his private rooms, and with 
his own hands carried food to him. But after a da} r or 
two, a veiy urgent message from the king calling this 
officer suddenly awa} T , in the haste of his departure he for- 
got Nixon, and left him locked up in the apartment. No 



"216 SCOTLAND AND ENGLAND. 

one missed him or discovered him ; and when at the end of 
three days the officer returned, Nixon was found dead, — 
dead, as he had himself foretold, of starvation. It is a 
strange and pitiful story, a tale suited to its centuiy, and 
could not be left out were there ever to be written a ballad- 
histoiy of the Vale-Royale's olden days. 

It is a question, in early mornings in Chester, whether to 
take a turn on the ancient walls, listening to echoes such as 
these from all the fair countiy in sight in embrace of the 
Dee, or to saunter through the market, and hear the shriller 
but no less characteristic voice of Cestrian life to-day. 

Markets are always good vantage-grounds for studying 
the life and people of a place or region. The true traveller 
never feels completely at home in a town till he has been 
in the markets. Man}' times I have gathered from the 
chance speech of an ignorant market man or woman in- 
formation I had been in search of for days. Markets are 
especially interesting in places where caste and class lines 
are strongly drawn, as in England. The market man or 
woman whose ancestors have been of the same following, 
and who has no higher ambition in life than to continue, 
and if possible enhance, the good will and the good name 
of the business, is good authorit}" to consult on all matters 
within his range. There is a self-poise about him, the 
result of his satisfaction with his own position, which is 
dignified and pleasing. 

On my last morning in Chester, I spent an hour or two 
in the markets, and encountered two good specimens of 
this class. One was a fair, slender girl, so unexception- 
ablv dressed in a plain, well-cut ulster that, as I observed 
her in the crowd of market-women, I supposed she was 
a 3'oung housekeeper, out for her early marketing ; but 
presently, to nw great astonishment, I saw her with her 
own hands measuring onions into a huckster-woman's 
basket. On drawing nearer, I discovered that she was 
the proprietress of a natty vegetable cart, piled full of all 
sorts of green stuff, which she was selling to the sellers. 
She could not have been more than eighteen. Her man- 
ner and speech were prompt, decisive, business-like ; she 
wasted no words in her transactions. Her little brother 
held the sturdy pony's reins, and she stood by the side of 
tfie cart, ready to take orders. She said that she lived ten 



CHESTER STREETS. 217 

miles out of town ; that she and her three brothers had a 
large market garden, of which they did all the work with 
their own hands, and she and this lad brought the produce 
to market daily. 

" I make more sellin' 'olesale than sellin' standin'," she 
said; "an' I'm 'ome again by ten o'clock, to be at the 
work." 

I observed that all who bought from her addressed her 
as " miss," and bore themselves toward her with a certain 
respectfulness of demeanor, showing that they considered 
her avocation a grade or so above their own. 

A matronly woman, with pink cheeks and bright hazel 
eyes, had walked in from her farm, a distance of six miles, 
because the load of greens, eggs, poultry, and flowers was 
all that her small pony could draw. Beautiful moss roses 
she had, at " thrippence" a bunch. 

" No, no, Ada, not any more," she said, in a delicious 
low voice, to a child by her side, who was slyly taking a 
rose from one of the baskets. "You've enough there. 
It hurts them to lie in the 'ot sun. — My daughter, mem," 
she explained, as the little thing shrunk back, covered 
with confusion, and pretended to be very busy arranging 
the flowers on a little board laid across two stones, behind 
which she was squatted, — " my daughter, mem. All the 
profits of the flowers they sell are their own, mem. They 
puts it all in the missionary box. They 'd eighteen an' 
six last year, mem, in all, besides what they put in the 
school box. Yes, mem, indeed the} 7 had." 

It struck me that this devout mother took a strange view 
of the meaning of the word " own," and I did not spend 
so much money on Ada's flowers as I would have done if 
I had thought Ada would have the spending of it herself, 
in her own childish way . But I bought a big bunch of 
red and white daisies, and another of columbines, white 
pinks, ivy, and poppies ; and the little maid, barely ten 
years old, took my silver, made change, and gave me 
the flowers with a winsome smile and a genuine market- 
woman's "Thank 3^011, mem." 

It was a prett} 7 scene : the open space in front of the 
market building, filled with baskets, bags, barrows, piles 
of fresh green things, chiefly of those endless cabbage 
species, which England so proudly enumerates when called 



218 SCOTLAND AND ENGLAND. 

upon to mention her vegetables ; the dealers were prin- 
cipally women, with fresh, fair faces, rosy cheeks, and 
soft voices ; in the outer circle, scores of tiny donkey- 
carts, in which the vegetables had been brought. One 
chubbj' little girl, surely not more than seven, was begin- 
ning her market-woman's training by minding the donke}', 
while her mother attended to trade. As she stood hy the 
donkey's side, her head barely reached to his ears ; but he 
entered very cleverly into the spirit of the farce of being 
kept in place by such a mite, and to that end employed 
her busily in feeding him with handfuls of grass. If she 
stopped, he poked his nose into her neck and rummaged 
under her chin, till she began again. All had flowers to 
sell, if it were only a single bunch, or plant in a pot ; and 
there were in the building several line stalls entirety filled 
with flowers, — roses, carnations, geraniums, and wonder- 
ful pansies. Noticing, in one stall, a blossom I had never 
before seen, I asked the old woman who kept the stand to 
tell me its name. She clapped her hand to her head trag- 
ically. "'Deed, mem, it's strange. Ye 're the second 
has asked me the name o' that flower ; an' it 's gone out 
o' ray head. If the young lady that has the next stand 
was here, she 'd tell ye. It was from her I got the roots : 
she's a great botanist, mem, an' a fine gardener. Could 
I send ye the name o' 't, mem ? I 'd be pleased to accom- 
modate }-e, an' may be ye 'd like a root or two o' 't. It 's 
a free grower. T\ r e 've 'ad a death in the house, mem, — 
m}' little grandchild, only a few hours ill, — an' it seems 
like it 'ad confused the 'ole 'ouse. We 've not 'ad 'eart to 
take pains with the flowers 3 T et." 

The old woman's artless, garrulous words smote like a 
sudden bell- note echo from a far past, — an echo that 
never ceases for hearts that have once known how bell- 
notes sound when bells toll for beloved dead ! The 
thoughts her words woke seemed to span Chester's cen- 
turies more vividly than all the old chronicle traditions 
and legends, than sculptured Roman altar, or coin, or 
graven story in stone. The strange changes the}' recorded 
were but things of the surface, conditions of the hour. 
Through and past them all, life remained the same. Grief 
and joy do not alter shape or sort. Love and love's losses 
and hurts are the same yesterday, to-day, and forever. 



III. 

NORWAY, DENMARK, AND GERMANY. 



III. 

NORWAY, DENMARK, AND GERMANY. 

BERGEN DAYS. 

The hardest way to go to Norway is by way of the 
North Sea. It is two clays' and two nights' sail from Hull 
to Bergen; and two days and two nights on the North 
Sea are nearly as bad as two days and two nights on the 
English Channel would be. But the hardest way is the 
best way, in this as in so many other things. No possible 
approach to Norway from the Continent can give one the 
sudden characteristic impression of Norway sea and shore 
which he gets as he sails up the Stavanger Fjord, and sees 
the town of Stavanger looking off from its hillside over 
the fleets of island and rock that lie moored in its harbor. 

At first sight it seems as if there were no Norway- coast 
at all, only an endless series of islands bej'ond islands, 
never staj'ed by any barrier of mainland ; or as if the main- 
land itself must be being disintegrated from its very centre 
outwards, breaking up and crumbling into pieces. Surely, 
the waters, when they were commanded to stay from off 
the earth, }'ielded the command but a fragmentary obedi- 
ence so far as this region was concerned. 

The tradition of the creation of Norway seems a nat- 
ural outgrowth of the place, — the only wa}^, in fact, of 
accounting for the la}- of the land. The legend declares 
that Norway was made last, and in this wise : On the 
seventh day, while God was resting from his labors, the 
devil, full of spite at seeing so fair a world, hurled into 
the ocean a gigantic rock, — a rock so large that it threat- 
ened to break the axis of the universe. But the Lord 
seized it, and fixed it firm in place, with its myriad jutting 
points just above the waters. Between these points he 



222 NORWAY, DENMARK, AND GERMANY. 

scattered all the earth he had left ; nothing like enough to 
cover the rock, or to make a respectable continent, — 
only just enough to redeem spots here and there, and give 
man a foothold on it. The fact that forty per cent of the 
whole surface of Norway is over three thousand feet above 
the sea is certainly a corroboration of this legend. 

This island fringe gives to the coast of Norway an in- 
definable charm, — the charm of endless maze, vista, ex- 
pectation, and surprise ; lure, also, suggestion, dim hint, 
and reticent revelation, like a character one cannot fathom, 
and behavior one can never reckon on. Though the 
ship sail in and out of the labyrinths never so safely and 
quickly, fancy is always busj T at deep-sea soundings ; be- 
wildered by the myriad shapes, and half conscious of a 
sort of rhythm in their swift, perpetual change, as if they, 
and not the ship, were gliding. The vivid verdure on 
them in spots has more the expression of something mo- 
mentarily donned and worn than of a growth.- It seems 
accidental and decorative, flung on suddenly ; then, again, 
soft, thick, inexhaustible, as if the islands might be the 
tops of drowned forests. 

Stavanger is one of the most ancient towns in Norway. 
It looks as if it were one of the most ancient in the world ; 
its very brightness, with its faded red houses, open win- 
dows, and rugged pavements, being like the color and 
smile one sees sometimes on a cheerful, wrinkled, old face. 
The houses are packed close together, going up-hill as 
hard as they can ; roofs red tiled ; gable ends red tiled 
also, which gives a droll e3~ebrow effect to the ends of the 
houses, and helps wonderfully to show off pretty faces 
just beneath them, looking out of windows. All the win- 
dows open in the middle, outwards, like shutters ; and it 
would not be much risk to say that there is not a window- 
sill in all Stavanger without flowers. Certainty, we did 
not see one in a three hours' ramble. From an old watch- 
tower, which stands on the top of the first sharp hill above 
the harbor, is a sweeping off-look, seaward and coastward, 
to north and south : long promontories, green and curving, 
with low red roofs here and there, shot up into relief by 
the sharp contrast of color ; ba} T s of blue water break- 
ing in between ; distant ranges of mountains glittering 
white ; thousands of islands in sight at once. Stavanger's 



BERGEN DAYS. 223 

approach strikes Norway's key-note with a bold hand, and 
old N orway and new Norway meet in Stavanger's market- 
place. An old cathedral, the oldest but one in the coun- 
try, looks clown a little inner harbor, where lie sloops 
loaded with gay pottery of shapes and colors copied from 
the latest patterns out in Staffordshire. These are made 
by peasants man}' miles away, on the shores of the fjords : 
bowls, jars, flower-pots, jugs, and plates, brown, cream- 
colored, red, and white ; painted with flowers, and decorated 
with Grecian and Etruscan patterns in simple lines. The 
sloop decks are piled high with them, — a gay show, and 
an odd enough freight to be at sea in a storm. The sail- 
ors' heads bob up and down among the pots and pans, 
and the salesman sits flat on the deck, lost from view, un- 
til a purchaser appears. Miraculously cheap this pottery 
is, as well as fantastic of shape and color; one could fit 
out his table off one of these crockery sloops, for next 
to nothing. Along the wharves were market-stands of all 
sorts : old women selling fuchsias, myrtles, carrots, and 
cabbages, and blueberries, all together ; piles of wooden 
shoes, too, — clumsy things, hollowed out of a single 
chunk of wood, shaped like a Chinese junk keel, and 
coarsely daubed with black paint on the outside ; no heel 
to hold them on, and but little toe. The racket made by 
shuffling along on pavements in them is amazing, and 
"down at the heel" becomes a phrase of new significance, 
after one has heard the thing done in Norway. 

Just outside the market-place we came upon our first 
cariole ; it was going by like the wind, drawn 03- a little 
Norwegian pony, which seemed part pincushion, part 
spaniel, part fat snowbird, and the rest pony, with a shoe- 
brush, bristles up, for a mane. Such good-will in his trot, 
and such a sense of honor and independence in the wrig- 
gle of his head, and such affectionateness all over him, no 
wonder the Norwegians love such a species of grown-up 
useful pet de§«. Hardy they are, and, if the}' choose, 
swift ; obey voices better than whips, and would rather 
have bread than hay to eat, at any time of da}*. The car- 
iole is a kind of compressed sulky, open, without springs ; 
the narrow seat, narrow even for one person, set high up 
on elastic wooden shafts, which rest on the axle-tree at the 
back, and on a sort of saddle-piece in front. The horse 



224 NORWAY, DENMARK, AND GERMANY. 

is harnessed very far forward in the low thills, and has the 
direct weight on his shoulders. A queerer sight than such 
a vehicle as this, coming at a Norwegian pony's best rate 
towards } t ou, with a pretty Norwegian girl driving, and 
standing up on the cross-piece behind her a handsome 
Norwegian officer, with his plumed head above hers, bent 
a little to the right or left, and very close, lovers of human 
nature in picturesque situations need not wish to see. 
Less picturesque, and no doubt less happj' for the time 
being, but no less characteristic, was the first family we 
saw in Stavanger taking an airing ; a square wooden box 
for a wagon, — nothing more than a vegetable bin on 
wheels. This held two large milk-cans, several bushels 
of cabbages, four children, and their mother. The' father 
walked sturdily beside the wagon, his head bent down, like 
his pony's ; serious eyes, a resolute mouth, and a certain 
look of unj'03'ous content marked him as a good specimen 
of the best sort of Norwegian peasant. The woman and 
the children wore the same look of unjoj r ous and unmirth- 
fnl content ; silent, serious, satisfied, the}' all sat still 
among the cabbages. So solemn a thing is it to be born 
in latitude north. Had those cabbages grown in the 
Campagna, the man would have been singing, the woman 
laughing, and the young ones rolling about in the cart like 
kittens. 

From Stavanger to Bergen is x a half-da}-'s sail: in and 
out among islands, promontories, inlets, rocks ; now wide 
sea on one hand, and rugged shore on the other ; now a 
very archipelago of bits of land and stone flung about in 
chaotic confusion, on all sides. Many of the islands are 
nothing but low beds of granite, loolnng as if it were in 
flaky slices like mica, or else minutely roughened and stip- 
pled, as though cooled suddenly from a tremendous boil. 
Some of these islands have oases of green in them ; tiny 
red farm-houses, sunk in hollows, with narrow settings of 
emerald around them ; hand's-breadth patches of grain 
here and there, left behind as from some harvest, which 
the hungry sea is following after to glean. No language 
can describe the fantastic, elusive charm of this islet and 
rocklet universe : half sadness, half cheer, half lonely, 
half teeming, altogether brilliant and brimming with 
beauty ; green land, gray rock, and blue water, surging, 



BERGEN DAYS. 225 

swaying, blending, parting, dancing together, in stately 
and contagious pleasure. On the north horizon rise grand 
snow-topped peaks ; broad blue bays make up into the 
land walled by mountains ; snow fjelds and glaciers glit- 
ter in the distance ; and waterfalls, like silver threads, 
shine from afar on the mist}' clouds. At every new turn 
is a hamlet or house, looking as if it had just crept into 
shelter ; one solitary boat moored at the base of its rock, 
often the only token of a link kept with the outer world. 

The half-day's sail from Stavanger to Bergen is all like 
this, except that after one turns southward into the Bergen 
Fjord the mysterious islanded shores press closer, and the 
hill shores back of them rise higher, so that expectancy 
and wonder deepen moment by moment, till the moment of 
landing on Bergen's water rim. ;t Will there be carriages 
at the wharf? " we had asked of the terrible stewardess who 
had tyrannized over our ship for two days, like a French 
Revolution fishwoman. " Carriages ! " she cried, with her 
arms akimbo. " The streets in Bergen are so steep car- 
riages can't drive down them. The horses would tumble 
back on the carriage," — a purely gratuitous fiction on 
her part, for what motive it is hard to conceive. But it 
much enhanced the interest with which we gazed at the 
rounding hills, slowly hemming us in closer and closer, and 
looking quite steep enough to justifj' the stewardess's as- 
sertion. By clocks, it was ten o'clock at night ; by sky, 
about dawn, or just after sunset ; by air, atmosphere, 
light, no time which any human being ever heard named 
or defined. There is nothing in any known calendar of 
daylight, twilight, or nightlight which is like this Norwe- 
o-ian interval between two lights. It is weird, bewildering, 
disconcerting. You don't know whether 3-011 are glad or 
sony, pleased or scared ; whether you realty can see or 
not ; whether you 'd better begin another day's work at 
once, or make believe it is time to go to bed. 

If somebody would invent a word which should bear 
the same interesting, specific, and intelligible relation to 
light and dark that " amphibious" does to land and water, 
it would be, in describing Norway twilight, of more use 
than all the rest of the English language put together. 
Perhaps the Norwegians have such a word. I think it 
highly probable the}' have, and I wish I knew it. 

15 



226 NORWAY, DENMARK, AND GERMANY. 

In this strange illuminated twilight, we landed on the 
silent Bergen wharf. The quay was in shadow of high 
warehouses. A few nonchalant and leisurely men and boys 
were ambling about; custom-house men, speaking the jar- 
gon of their race, went through the farce of appearing to 
ransack our luggage. Our party seemed instantaneously 
to have disintegrated, in the half darkness, into odds and 
ends of unassorted boxes and people, and it was with grati- 
tude as for a succession of interpositions of a superior and 
invincible power that we finally found ourselves together 
again in one hotel, and decided that, on the whole, it was 
best to go to bed, in spite of the light, because, as it was 
already near midnight, it would very soon be still lighter, 
and there would be no going to bed at all. 

The next da} T , we began Bergen by driving out of it (a 
good way alwa}^, to begin a place). No going out of 
Bergen eastward or westward except straight up skyward, 
so steep are the slopes. Southward the country opens by 
gentler ascents, and pretty- country houses are built along 
the road for miles, — all of wood, and of light colors, 
with much fantastic carving about them ; summer - houses 
perched on the terraces, among lime, birch, and ash trees. 
One which we saw was in octagon shape, and had the 
roof thick sodded with grass, which waved in the wind. 
The eight open spaces of the sides were draped with 
bright scarlet curtains, drawn awa}^ tight on each side, 
making a Gothic arch line of red at each opening. It 
looked like somebod3 T 's gay palanquin set down to wait. 

Our driver's name was Nils. He matched it : short, 
sturdy, and good-natured ; red cheeks and shining brown 
eyes. His ponies scrambled along splendidly, and stopped 
to rest whenever they felt like it, — not often, to be sure, 
but they had their own way whenever they did, and were 
allowed to stand still. Generally they put their heads 
down and started off of their own accord in a few seconds ; 
occasionally Nils reminded them by a chuckle to go on. 

There is no need of any society for the prevention of 
cruehVy to animals in Norway. The Norwegian seems 
to be instinctively kind to all beasts of bondage. At the 
foot of steep hills is to be seen everywhere the sign, " Do 
not forget to rest the horses." The noise Nils made when 
he wished to stop his ponies gave us a fright, the first time 



BERGEN DAYS. 227 

we heard it. It is the drollest sound ever invented for such 
a use : a loud call of rolling r's; an ingenious human parody 
on a watchman's rattle ; a cross between a bellow and a 
purr. It is universal in Norway, but one can never become 
accustomed to it unless he has heard it from infancy up. 

The wild and wooded country through which we drove 
was like parts of the northern hill country of New England : 
steep, stony hills ; nooks full of ferns ; bits of meadow in 
sunlight and shadow, with clover, and buttercups, and 
bluebells, and great moss} r bowlders ; farm-houses snugged 
down in hollows to escape the wind ; lovely dark tarns, 
with pond-lilies afloat, just too far from the shore for arms 
to reach them. Only when we met people, or when the 
great blue fjord gleamed through the trees below us, did 
we know we were away from home. It is a glory when 
an arm of the sea reaches up into the heart of a hill coun- 
try, so that men ma}' sail to and from mountain bases. No 
wonder that the Vikings went forth with the passion of con- 
quering, and yet forever returned and returned, with the 
passion of loving their gamle Norge. 

When we came back to the inn, we were invited into the 
landlady's own parlor, and there were served to us wine 
and milk and sweet tarts, in a gracious and simple hospital- 
it}'. The landlady and her sister were beautiful old ladies, 
well past sixty, with skins like peaches, and bright eyes 
and quick smiles. High caps of white lace, trimmed with 
sky-blue ribbons, and blue ostrich feathers laid on them like 
wreaths above the forehead, gave to their expression a sort 
of infantile elegance which was bewitching in its unworld- 
liness ; small white shawls thrown over their shoulders, 
and reaching only just below the belt, like those worn 
by old Quaker women, corroborated the simplicity of the 
blue ribbons, and added to the charm. They had all the 
freshness and spotlessness of Quakers, with color and 
plumes added ; a combination surely unique of its kind. 
One of these old ladies was as gay a chatterer as if she 
were only seventeen. She had not one tooth in her mouth ; 
but her mouth was no more made ugly by the absence of 
teeth, as are most old women's mouths, than a babv's 
mouth is made ugly by the same lack. The lips were full 
and soft and red ; her face was not wrinkled ; and when she 
talked and laughed and nodded, the blue ostrich feathers 



228 NORWAY, DENMARK, AND GERMANY. 

bobbing above, she looked like some sort of miraculous 
bab}^, that had learned to talk before "teething." 

Her niece, who was our only interpreter, and too shy 
to use quickly and fluently even the English she knew, 
was in despair at trying to translate her. "It is too 
much, too much," she said. " I cannot follow ; I am too 
far behind," and she laughed as heartily as her aunt. The 
old lady was brimful of stories : she had known Bergen, 
in and out, for half a century, and forgotten nothing. It 
was a great pleasure to set her going, and get at her nar- 
rative by peeps, as one sees a landscape through chinks in 
a fence, when one is whirling b^y in a railwa}' train. One 
of her best stories was of ' ' the man who was brought back 
from the dead by coffee." 

It seemed that when she was young there lived in Bergen 
three old women, past whose house an eccentric old bach- 
elor used to walk every day at a certain hour. When he 
came back from his walk, he alwaj's stopped at their house 
and drank a cup of coffee. This he had done for a great 
many years. " He was their watch to tell the time by," 
and when he first passed the house they began to make 
the coffee, that it should be read3 r on his return. At last 
he fell ill and died, and two of these old women were hired 
to sit up one night and watch the corpse. It is the custom 
in Norway to keep ail dead bodies one week before burial, 
if not in the house where they have died, then in the chapel 
at the graveyard. "When we do die on a Wednesday, 
we shall not be buried till another Wednesday have come," 
said the niece, explaining this custom. 

These old women were sitting in the room with the 
corpse, talking and sipping hot coffee together, and saying 
how they should miss him ; that never more would he go 
b} T their house and stop to get his coffee. 

"At any rate, he shall taste the coffee once more," said 
one of them, and she put a spoonful of the hot coffee into 
the corpse's lips, at which the old gentleman stirred, drew 
a long breath, and began to lift himself up, upon which 
the women uttered such shrieks that the city watchman, 
passing by, broke quickly into the house, to see what was 
the matter. Entering the room, he found the watchers 
senseless on the floor, and the corpse sitting bolt upright 
in his coffin, looking around him, much bewildered. " And 



BERGEN DAYS. 229 

he did live many years after that time, — many, many 
years. My aunt did know him well," said the niece. ■ 

Other of her stories were of the sort common to the 
whole world, — stories of the love, sorrow, tragedy, mys- 
tery, which are inwoven in the very warp and woof of 
human life ; the same on the bleak North Sea coast as on 
bright Southern shores. It seemed, however, a little more 
desolate to have lived in the sunless North seventy years 
of such life as had been dealt to one Bergen woman, who 
had but just passed awa}^. Seventy years she had lived in 
Bergen, the last thirty alone, with one servant. In her 
youth she had been beautiful ; and when she was still little 
more than a child had come to love ver} T dear!}' the eldest 
son in a neighbor's house. Their parents were friends ; the 
young people saw each other without restraint, familiarly, 
fondly, and a great love grew up between them. They 
were suffered to become betrothed, but for some unassigned 
reason their marriage was forbidden. For years the}^ bore 
with strange patience their parents' apparently capricious 
decision. At last the blow fell. One of the fathers, lying 
at the point of death, revealed a terrible secret. This 
faithful betrothed man and woman were own brother and 
sister. The shame of two homes, the guilt of two unsus- 
pected wrong-ciders, was told ; the nrystery was cleared 
up, and more than one heart broken. Bitter as was the 
grief of the two betrothed, who could now never wed, there 
must have been grief still more terrible in the hearts of 
those long ago wedded, and so long deceived. The father 
died as soon as he had confessed the guilty secret. The 
young man left Norway, and died in some far countn\ 
The girl lived on, — lived to be seventy, — alone with her 
sorrow and disgrace. 

Two other Bergen lovers had had better fate. Spite of 
fathers and mothers who had forbidden them to meet, it 
fell out for them to be safely married, one night, in the 
very teeth of the closest watching. The girl was per- 
mitted to go, under the escort of a faithful man-servant, to 
a wedding dance at a friend's house. The man-servant 
was ordered to stand guard at the door, till the dance was 
over ; if the lover appeared, the girl was to be instantly 
taken home. Strange oversight, for parents so much in 
earnest as that, to forget that houses have more than one 



230 NORWAY, DENMARK, AND GERMANY. 

door! When the mirth was at its height, the girl stole 
away by the back door, and fled to her lover. At length 
the dance was over, and the guests were leaving ; anx- 
iously the faithful servitor, who had never once left the 
doorstep, looked for his young mistress. The last guest 
departed ; his mistress did not appear. In great terror 
he entered ; the house was searched in vain ; no one knew 
when she had taken her leave. Trembling, he ran back 
to the father with the unwelcome news ; and both going 
in hot haste to the lover's house, there the}* found the two 
young people sitting gay and happy over cake and wine, 
with the excellent clergyman who had that very hour made 
them man and wife. 

The old lady had a firm and unalterable belief in ghosts, 
as indeed she had some little right to have, one was forced 
to admit, after hearing her stories. " And could you be- 
lieve that after a man is dead he should be seen again as 
if he were alive?" said the niece. " My aunt is so sure, 
so sure she have seen such ; also my aunt's sister, they 
did both did see him." 

At one time the two sisters hired a house in Bergen, and 
lived together. In one of the upper halls stood a small 
trunk, which had been left there by a sailor, in paj'ment 
of a debt he had owed to the owner of the house. One 
day, in broad daylight, there suddenly appeared, before 
the younger sister, the shape of a man in sailor's dress. 
He walked toward her, holding out a paper. She spoke to 
him wonderingly, asking what he wanted. At the sound 
of her voice he vanished into thin air. She fainted, and 
was for some weeks seriously ill. A few months later, the 
same figure appeared in the bedroom of the eldest sister 
(the old lady who told these stories). He came in the 
night, and approached her bed holding out a white paper 
in his hands. " My aunt sa} r she could cut the shape in 
paper like the hat he wore on his head ; she did see it so 
plain to-day as she have seen it then, and it shall be' fifty 
years since he did come by her bed. She was so scared 
she would not have the trunk of the sailor to stand in the 
house longer ; and after the trunk had gone away he did 
come no more to their house." 

Another instance of this ghost-seeing was truly re- 
markable, and not so easily explained by an}- freak of 



BERGEN DAYS. 231 

imagination. Walking, one da} T , in a public garden, with 
a friend, she saw coming down the path toward them a 
singular old woman in a white nightcap and short white 
bedgown, — both very dirty. The old woman was toss- 
ing her arms in the air, and behaving so strangely that she 
thought she must be drunk, and turned laughingly to her 
friend, about to say, " What can be the matter with this 
old woman?" when, to her surprise, she saw her friend 
pale, fainting, read}' to fall to the ground. She seized her 
in her arms, called for help, and carried her to a seat. 
On returning to consciousness, her friend exclaimed, "It 
was my mother ! It was my mother ! " The mother had 
been dead some months, had always worn in her illness 
this white cotton nightcap and short bedgown, and had 
been, it seemed, notoriously unticlv. 

" Now nry aunt did never see that old woman in all her 
life," continued the niece. " So what think you it was, in 
that garden, that both them did see the same thing at one 
time? And my aunt's friend she get so very sick after 
that, she were sick in bed for a long time. My aunt will 
believe always she did see the mother's ghost ; and she 
says she have seen a great man}- more that she never tells 
to anybodv." 

All this ghost-seeing has not sobered or saddened the 
old lady a whit, and she looks the last person in the world 
to whom sentimental or mischief- making spirits would be 
likely to address themselves : but there is certainly some- 
thing uncanny, to say the least of it, in these experiences 
of hers. 

One of the most novel pleasures in Bergen is old-silver 
hunting. There are shops where old silver is to be bought 
in abundance and at dear prices : old belts, rings, slides, 
buttons, brooches, spoons, of quaint and fantastic styles, 
some of them hundreds of years old. But the connoisseur 
in old-silver hunting will not confine his search for treas- 
ures to the large shops on the thoroughfares. He will 
roam the city, keeping a sharp eye for little boxes tucked 
up on walls of houses, far down narrow lanes and by-ways, 
— little boxes with glass sides, and a silver spoon or two, 
or an old buckle or brooch, shining through. This is the 
sign that somewhere in that house he will come on a fam- 
ily that has tucked away in some closet a little box of old 



232 NORWAY, DENMARK, AND GERMANY. 

silver that they will sell. Often the} 7 are workers in silver 
~y in a small way ; have a counter in the front parlor, and a 
tiny work-room opening out behind, where the}' make thin 
silver spoons with twisted handles, and brooches with dan- 
gling disks and crosses, such as all the peasant women 
wear to-day, and a hundred years hence their grandchildren 
will be selling to English and American travellers as " old 
silver." The next century, however, will not gather such 
treasures as this one ; there is no modern silver to com- 
pare with the ancient. It is marvellous to see what a 
wealth of silver the old Norwegians wore : buckles and 
belts which are heavy, buttons which weigh down any 
cloak, and rings under which nineteenth-century fingers, 
and even thumbs, would ache. And the farther back we 
go the weightier become the ornaments. In the Museum 
of Northern Antiquities in Copenhagen are necklaces of 
solid gold, which it seems certain that noble Norwegian 
women wore in King Olaf's time, — necklaces in shape of a 
single snake, coiled, so heavy that they are not easily lifted 
in one hand ; bracelets, also of the same snake shape, which 
a modern wrist could not wear half an hour without pain. 
In these out-of-the-way houses where old silver is to be 
bought one sees often picturesque sights. Climbing up a 
narrow stairway, perhaps two, you find a door with the 
upper half glass, through which you look instantly into the 
bosom of the family, — children playing, old ladies knitting, 
women cooking ; it seems the last place in the world to come 
shopping ; but at the first glimpse of the foreign face and 
dress through the window, somebody springs to open the 
door. They know at once what it means. You want no 
interpreter to carry on 30111* trade : the words "old silver" 
and " how much?" are all } t ou need. They will not cheat 
you. As 3'ou enter the room, every member of the family 
who is sitting will rise and greet 3'ou. The } T oungest child 
will make its little bow or courtes} T . The box of old silver 
will be brought out and emptied on a table, and 3-011 may 
examine its miscellany as long as 3 T ou like. If an article 
pleases you, and 3 T ou ask its price, it is taken into the 
work-room to be weighed ; a few mysterious Norsk words 
come back from the weigher, and the price is fixed. If 
you hesitate at the sum, they will lower it if the} 7 can ; if 
not, the}- will await 3 T our departure quietly, with a dignity 






BERGEN DAYS. 233 

of hospitable instinct that would deem it an offence to be- 
tray any impatience. I had once the good luck to find in 
one of these places a young peasant woman, who had come 
with her lover to bargain for the silver-and-gilt crown 
without which no virtuous Bergen bride will wed. These 
crowns are dear, costing often from fifty to a hundred 
dollars. Sometimes the\^ are hired for the occasion ; but 
well-to-do families have pride in possessing a crown which 
is handed down and worn by generation after generation. 
These lovers were evidently not of the rich class : they 
wore the plainest of clothes, and it was easy to see that 
the prices of the crowns disquieted them. I made signs 
to the girl to try one of them on. She laughed, blushed, 
and shook her head. I pressed my entreaties as well as I 
could, being dumb; but "Oh, do!" is intelligible in all 
languages, if it is enforced by gesture and appealing look. 
The old man who had the silver to sell also warmly sec- 
onded my request, lifted the crown himself, and set it on 
the girl's head. Turning redder and redder, she cried, 
"Ne, ne ! " but did not resist; and once the crown was 
on her head she could not leave off looking at herself in 
the glass. It was a very pretty bit of human nature. 
The lover stole up close behind her, stry, but glowing 
with emotion, reached up, and just touched the crown 
timidly with one finger: so alike are men in love all 
the world over and all time through. The look that 
man's face wore has been seen b} T the eyes of every wife 
since the beginning of Eden, and it will last the world out. 
I slipped away, and left them standing before the glass, 
the whole family crowding around with a chorus of approv- 
ing and flattering exclamations. Much I fear she could 
not afford to buy the crown, however. There was a hope- 
less regret in her pretty blue eyes. As I left the house I 
stepped on juniper twigs at the very next door ; the side- 
walk and the street were strewn thick with them, the sym- 
bol of death either in that home or among its friends. 
This is one of the most simple and touching of the Norwe- 
gian customs : how much finer in instinct and significance 
than the gloomy streamer of black crape used by the civili- 
zation calling itself superior ! 

The street was full of men and women going to and from 
the market-place : women with big wooden firkins strapped 



234 NORWAY, DENMARK, AND GERMANY. 

on their backs, and a firkin under each arm (these firkins i 
were full of milk, and the women think nothing of bringing 
them in that way five or six miles) ; men with big sacks ; 
of vegetables strapped on in the same waj r , one above : 
another, almost as high as their heads. One little girl, J 
not nine years old, bore a huge basket of green moss, j 
bigger than herself, lashed on her fragile shoulders. The 
better class brought their things in little two -wheeled 
carts, they themselves mounted up on top of sacks, firkins, 
and all ; or, if the cart were too full, plodding along on i 
foot by its side, just as bent as those who were carrying I 
loads on their back. A Bergen peasant man or woman | 
who stands upright is a rare thing to see. The long habit i 
of carrying burdens on the back has given them a chronic j 
stoop, which makes them all look far older than they are. 

The sidewalks were lined with gay displays of fruit, 
flowers, and wooden utensils. Prettiest among these last 
were the bright wooden trunks and boxes which no Nor- 
wegian peasant will be without. The trunks are painted \ 
bright scarlet, with bands and stripes of gay colors ; small j 
boxes to be carried in the hand, called tines (pronounced j 
teeners) , are charming. They are oval, with a high perch 
at each end like a squirrel trap ; are painted bright red, i 
with wreaths of ga}' flowers on them, and mottoes such as | 
"Not in every man's garden can such flowers grow," or, i 
" A basket filled by love is light to carry." Bowls, wooden j 
plates, and drinking- vessels, all of wood, are also painted 
in ,ga} T colors and designs, many of which seem to have 
come from Algiers. 

Everybody who can sell anything, even the smallest 
thing, runs, or stands, or squats in the Bergen streets to •, 
sell it. Even spaces under high doorsteps are apparently *| 
rented for shops, rigged up with a sort of door, and old .' 
women sit crouching in them, selling blueberries and dark 
bread. One man, clad in sheepskin that looked a hundred 
years old, I saw trying to sell a bit of sheepskin nearly as 
old as that he was wearing ; another had a basket with 
three bunches of wild monkshood, pink spiraea, and blue 
larkspur, and one small saucer full of wild strawberries ; 
boys carrying one pot with a plant growing in it, or a tub 
of sour milk, or a string of onions, or bunch of juniper 
boughs ; women sitting on a small butter-tub upside down, 



i 



BERGEN DAYS. 235 

their butter waiting sale around them in tubs or bits of 
newspaper, they knitting for clear life, or sewing patches 
on ragged garments ; other groups of women sitting flat 
on the stones, surrounded by piles of juniper, moss, green 
heath, and wreaths made of kinni-kinnick vines, green 
moss, and yellow flowers. These last were for graves. 
The whole expression of the scene was of dogged and 
indomitable thriftiness, put to its last wits to turn a pen ny 
and squeeze out a living. Yet nobody appeared discon- 
tented ; the women looked friendly, as I passed, and smiled 
as they saw me taking out my note-book to write them 
down. 

The Bergen fish-market is something worth seeing. It 
is n't a market at all ; or rather it is a hundred markets 
afloat and bobbing on water, a hundred or more little 
boats all crowded in together in an armlet of the sea 
breaking up between two quays. To see the best of it 
one must be there betimes in the morning, not later than 
seven. The quays will be lined with women, each woman 
carrying a tin coal-scuttle on her arm, to take home her 
fish in. From every direction women are coming running 
with tin scuttles swinging on their arms ; in Bergen, fish 
is never carried in an}' other way. The narrow span of 
water between the quays is packed as close as it can be 
with little boats shooting among the sloops and jagts, all 
pushing up to the wharf. The steps leading down to the 
water are crowded with gesticulating women ; screaming 
and gesticulating women hang over the railings above, 
beckoning to the fishermen, calling to them, reaching over 
and dealing them sharp whacks with their tin scuttles, if 
they do not reply. " Fisherman ! I say, Fisherman ! Do 
you hear me or not?" they shout. Then they point to 
one particular fish, and insist on having it handed up to 
them to examine ; if it does not please them, they fling it 
down with a jerk, and ask for another. The boats were 
full of fish: silver-skinned herring, mackerel, salmon, eels, 
and a small fish like a perch, but of a gorgeous dark red 
color ; others vermilion and white, or iridescent opal, blue, 
and black ; many of them writhing in death, and changing 
color each second. Eveiy few minutes a new boat would 
appear darting in, wriggling its way where it had seemed 
not one boat more could come : then a rush of the women 



236 NORWAY, DENMARK, AND GERMANY. 

to see what the new boat had brought, a fresh outburst of 
screams and gesticulations ; then a lull and a sinking back 
to the noisy monotone of the previous chaffering. Some 
of the boats were rowed by women, — splendid creatures, 
in gay red bodices and white head-dresses, standing with 
one foot on the seat, and sculling their little craft in and 
out, dexterously shoving everybody to make wa t y. 

On the wharf were a few dealers with stands and baskets 
of fish; these were for the poorer people. " Fish that 
have died do be to be brought there," said my guide, with a 
shudder and an expressive grimace, "for very little money ; 
it is the poor that take." Here were also great tubs of 
squirming eels, alive in every inch from tip to tip. " Too 
small to cook," said one woman, eying them contemptu- 
ously ; and in a twinkling she thrust her arm into the 
squirming mass, grasped a dozen or more at once, lifted 
them out and flirted them into the seller's face, then let- 
ting them fall back with a splash into the tub, " H'm, 
prett}^ eels those are!" she said. "Put them back into 
the water with their mothers : " at which a great laugh 
went up, and the seller muttered something angrily which 
my guide would not translate for me. 

On our way home I stopped to look at a group of peas- 
ant women in gay costumes. Two of them were from the 
Hardanger countiy, and wore the beautiful white head- 
dress peculiar to that region : a large triangular piece of 
fine crimped dimit}' pinned as closely as a Quaker cap 
around the face ; the two corners then rolled under and 
carried back over a wooden frame projecting several inches 
on each side the head ; the central point hanging down 
behind, over the shoulders, — by far the most picturesque 
of all the Norwegian head-dresses. A gentleman passing 
by, seeing my interest in these peasant dresses, spoke to 
the friend who was with me, whom he knew slightly, and 
said that if the American lad} T would like to examine one 
of those peasant costumes he had one which he would be 
happy to show to me. 

The incident is worth mentioning as a fair illustration 
of the quick, ready, and cordial good-will of which Nor- 
wegians are full. Is there any other country in the world 
where a man would take that sort and amount of trouble 
for a chance traveller, of whom he knew nothing;? 



BERGEN DAYS. 237 

This Norwegian led us to his house, and opened two 
boxes in which were put away the clothes of his wife, who 
had been dead two years. This peasant costume which 
he showed to us she had had made to wear to the last ball 
she had attended. It was a beautiful costume ; strictly 
national and characteristic, and made of exquisite matet 
rials. The belt was of silver-gilded links, with jewels se- 
in them ; the buttons for wrists and throat of the white 
blouse were of solid silver, with gold Maltese crosses 
hanging from them ; the brooches and vest ornaments 
the same ; the stomacher of velvet, embroidered thick 
with beads and gold ; the long white apron with broad 
lace let in. All were rich and beautiful. It was strange 
to see the dead woman's adornments thus brought out 
for a stranger to admire ; but it was done with such 
simplicity and kindliness that it was only touching, as no 
shadow of disrespect was in it. I felt instantly, like a 
friend, reverent toward the relics of the woman I had 
never seen. 

One of our pleasantest Bergen claj T s was a day that 
wound up with a sunset picnic on the banks of a stray bit 
of sea, which had gone so far on its narrow roadway east, 
among hill and meadow and rock, that it was like an 
inland lake ; and the track by which its tides slipped back 
and forth looked at sunset like little more than a sunbeam, 
broader and brighter than the rest which were slanting 
across. We had come to it by several miles' driving to 
the north and east, over steep and stony hills, up which 
the road wound in loops, zigzagging back and forth, with 
superb views out seaward at eveiy turn ; at the top, another 
great sweep of view away from the sea, past a desolate lake 
and stony moor, to green hills and white mountains in the 
east. We seemed above everything except the snow- 
topped peaks. At our feet, to the west, lay the little 
sunny fjord ; green meadows and trees and a handful of 
houses around it ; daisies and clover and tangles of poten- 
tilla by the roadside ; clumps of ragged robin also, which 
goes better named in Norway, being called " silken blos- 
som ; " mountain ash, larch, maple, and ash trees ; bowl- 
ders of granite covered with mosses and lichens, bedded on 
every side, — it was as winning a spot as sun and sea and 
summer could make anywhere. On the edge of the fjord, 



238 NORWAY, DENMARK, AND GERMANY. 

lifted a little above it, as on a terrace, was a small white 
cottage, with a bit of garden, enclosed by white palings, 
running close to the water. Roses, southernwood, cur- 
rants, lilacs, cheny-trees, potatoes, and primroses filled 
it full. We leaned over the paling and looked. An old 
woman, with knitting in her hand, came quickly out, and 
begged us to come in and take some flowers. No sooner 
had we entered the garden than a second old woman came 
hurrying with scissors to cut the flowers ; and in a second 
more a third old woman with a basket to hold them. It 
was not eas} r to stay their hands. Then, nothing would 
do but we must go into the house and sit down, and see 
the brothers : two old men, one a clergy-man, the other stone 
blind. " I can English read in my New Testament," said 
the clergyman, " but I cannot understand." " Yes, to be 
sure," said the blind brother, echoing him. And it was 
soon evident to us that it was not only sight of which the 
old man had been bereft ; his wits were gone too ; all that 
he could do now was to echo in gentle iteration every word 
that his brother or sisters said. "Yes, to be sure," was 
his instantaneous comment on every word spoken. "I 
think they are all just a little crazy. I am more happy 
now that we are away," said my friend, as we departed 
with our roses. "I do know I have heard that to be 
crazy is in that family." Crazy or not, they were a very 
happy family on that sunn3 T terrace, and sane enough to 
have chosen the loveliest spot to live in within ten miles 
of Bergen. 

Another of our memorable Bergen days was marked by 
a true Norwegian dinner in a simple Bergen home. "The 
carriage that shall take } t ou will come at six," the hostess 
had said. Punctual to the hour it came ; red-cheeked Nils 
and the cheery little ponies. On the threshold we were 
met by the host and hostess, both sa} T ing, "Welcome." 
As soon as we took our seats at table a toast was offered : 
"Welcome to the table" (Welkommen tilborcls). The 
meal was, as we had requested, a simple Norwegian din- 
ner. First, a soup, with balls made of chicken : the meat 
scraped fine while it is raw ; then pounded to a paste with 
cream in a marble mortar, the cream added drop b} T drop, 
as oil is added to salad dressing ; this, delicately seasoned, 
made into small round balls and cooked in the boiling 



BERGEN DAYS. 239 

soup, had a delicious flavor, and a consistency which baffled 
all our conjecture. Next came salmon, garnished with 
shreds of cucumber, and with clear melted butter for sauce. 
Next, chickens stuffed tight with green parsley, and boiled ; 
with these were brought vegetables, raspberry jam, and 
stewed plums, all delicious. Next, a light omelet, baked 
in a low oval tin pan, in which it was brought to the table, 
the pan concealed in a frame of stiff white dimitj 7 with a 
broad frill embroidered in red. Cheese and many other 
dishes are served in this wa} 7 in Norway, adorned with 
petticoats, or frills of embroidered white stuffs. With 
this omelet were eaten cheny sweetmeats, with which had 
been cooked all the kernels from the cracked stones, giving 
a rare flavor and richness to the syrup. After this, nuts, 
coffee, and cordials. When the dinner was over, the host 
and the hostess stood in the doorway, one on either hand ; 
as we passed between them, they bowed to each one, say- 
ing, "God be with 3'ou." It is the custom of each guest 
to sa} r , ' ' T ah fur maden " ( " Thanks for the meal ") . After 
dinner our hostess phryed for us Norwegian airs, wild and 
tender, and at ten o'clock came Nils and the ponies to 
take us home. 

The next day the jagts came in, a sight fine enough to 
stir one's blood ; ten of them sailing into harbor in line, 
the same as they sailed in Olaf's day, — their prows curl- 
ing upward, as if they stepped high on the waters from 
pride, and their single great square sail set on their one 
mast doggedly across their decks, as if they could compel 
winds' courses to suit them. They had been only four 
days running down from Heligoland, ahead of a fierce 
north wind, which had not so much as drawn breath even 
night or da} 7 , but blown them clown flying. A rare piece 
of luck for the jagts to hit such a wind as that : when the 
wind faces them, they are sometimes four weeks on the 
way ; for their one great stolid sail amidships, which is all 
very well with the wind behind it, is no kind of a sail to 
tack with, or to make headway on a quartering wind. The 
Vikings must have had a hard time of it, often, manoeu- 
vring their stately craft in Mediterranean squalls, and in 
the Bay of Biscay. One of these jagts bore a fine scarlet 
silk flag with a yellow crown on it. It was called the king's 
jagt, because, a year ago, the king had visited it, spent 



240 NORWAY, DENMARK, AND GERMANY. 

some time on board, and afterward sent this flag as a gift 
to the captain. We hired an old boatman to row us along- 
side, and clambered on board up a swinging ladder ; then 
up another ladder, still longer, to the top of the square 
mountain of salt codfish which filled three fourths of the 
deck. Most of it was to go to Spain, the skipper said, — 
to Spain and the Mediterranean. " It was well for Nor- 
way that there were so many Roman Catholic Countries : " 
no danger of an overstock of the fish market in Europe so 
long as good Catholics keep Lent every spring and Fridays 
all the year round. If the Catholics were to be converted, 
Norway would be plunged into misery. One tenth of her 
whole population live off, if not on, fish ; the value of the 
fisheries is reckoned at over ten millions of dollars a 3 r ear. 
Not a fish goes free on the Norway coast. Even the shark 
has to give up his liver for oil, from which item alone the 
Norwegians get about half a million of dollars 3 r early. 
The herring, shining, silvery, slippery fellows that they 
are, are the aristocrats of the Norway waters ; the cod is 
stupid, stays quietly at home on his banks, breeds and 
multiplies, and waits to be caught year after year in the 
same places. But the herring shoals are off and on, at 
capricious pleasure, now here, now there, and to be 
watched for with unremitting vigilance. Kings' squadrons 
might come to Norway with less attention than is given to 
them. Flash, flash, flash, by electric telegraph from point 
to point all along the Norway shore, is sent like lightning 
the news of the arrival of their majesties the herring. 

Our boatman rowed us across the harbor to the landing 
at the foot of the market-place. Climbing the steep hill, 
so steep that the roadway for vehicles zigzags five times 
across it between bottom and top, we looked back. Four 
more of the jagts were coming in, — colors flying, sails 
taut ; six more were in sight, it was said, farther out in 
the fjord. The harbor was crowded with masts ; the gaj 7 - 
colored houses and red roofs and gables of the city on the 
east side of the harbor stood out in relief against the gray, 
stoiry background of the high hill to which they cling. 
The jagts seem to change the atmosphere of the whole 
scene, and set it three centuries back. In the sunset light, 
they looked as fine and fierce as if they had just brought 
Sigurd home from Jerusalem. 



BERGEN DAYS. 241 

Another memorable Bergen day was a day at Valestrand, 
on the island Osteroen. Valestrand is a farm which has 
been in the possession of Ole Bull's family for several gen- 
erations, and is still in the possession of Ole Bull's eldest 
son. It lies two hours' sail north from Bergen, — two 
hours, or four according to the number of lighters loaded 
with cotton bales, wood, etc., which the steamer picks up 
to draw. Steamers on Norwa}' fjords are like country gen- 
tlemen who go into the city every day and come out at 
night, alwa} T s doing unexpected errands for people along 
the road. JNo steamer captain going out from Bergen may 
say how mairy times he will stop on his journey, or at what 
hour he will reach its end : all of which is clear profit for 
the steamboat compan}-, no doubt, but is worrying to trav- 
ellers ; especially to those who leave Bergen of a morning at 
seven, as w r e did, invited to breakfast at Valestrand at nine, 
and do not see Osteroen's shore till near eleven. People 
who were not going to Valestrand to breakfast that daj^ 
were eating breakfast on board, all around us : poor people 
eating cracknels and dry bread out of baskets ; well-to-do 
people eating sausage, eggs, and coffee, neatly served at 
little tables on deck, and all prepared in a tiny coop below- 
stairs, hardly big enough for one person to turn around in. 
It is an enticing sight always for hungiy people to see 
eating going on ; up to a certain point it whets appetite, 
but beyond that it is both insult and injury. 

The harbor of Valestrand is a tiny amphitheatre of shal- 
low water. No big craft can get to the shore. As the 
steamer comes to a stop opposite it, the old home of Ole 
Bull is seen on a slope at the head of the harbor, looking 
brightly out over a bower of foliage to the southern sun. 
It appears to be close to the water, but, on landing, one 
discovers that he is still a half hour's walk away from it. 
A little pathwa}' of mossy stones, past an old boat-house, 
on whose thatched roof flowering grasses and a young 
birch-tree w r ere waving, leads up from the water to the 
one road on the island. Wild pansies, white clover, and 
dandelions, tinkling water among ferns and mosses, along 
the roadsides, made the way beautiful ; low hills rose on 
either side, softly wooded with firs and birches feathery 
as plumes ; in the meadows, peasant men and women mak- 
ing hay, — the women in red jackets and white blouses, a 

16 



242 NORWAY, DENMARK, AND GERMANY. 

delight to the eye. Just in front of the house is a small, 
darkly shaded lake, in which there is a mysterious floating 
island, which moves up and down at pleasure, changing 
its moorings often. 

The house is wooden, and painted of a pale flesh-color. 
The architecture is of the light and fantastic order of which 
so much is to be seen in Norway, — the instinctive reaction 
of the Norwegian against the sharp, angular, severe lines 
of his rock-made, rock-bound country ; and it is vindicated 
by the fact that fantastic carvings, which would look trivial 
and impertinent on houses in countries where Nature her- 
self had done more decorating, seem here pleasing and in 
place. Before the house were clumps of rose-bushes in 
blossom, and great circles of blazing yellow eschscholtzias. 
In honor of our arrival, every room had been decorated 
with flowers and ferns ; and clumps of wild pansies in 
bloom had been set along the steps to the porch. Ole 
Bull's own chamber and music-room are superb rooms, 
finished in yellow pine, with rows of twisted and carved 
pillars, and carved cornices and beams and panels, all 
done by Norwegian workmen. 

Valestrand was his home for many years, abandoned 
only when he found one still more beautiful on the island 
of Lysoen, sixteen miles southwest of Bergen. 

A Norwegian supper of trout freshty caught, and smoth- 
ered in cream, croquettes, salad, strawberries, goat's-milk 
cheese, with fine-flavored gooseberry wine, served by a 
Norwegian maid in a white-winged head-dress, scarlet 
jacket, and stomacher of gay beads, closed our day. As 
we walked back to the little moss-grown wharf,- we found 
two peasants taking trout from the brook. Just where it 
dashed foaming under a little foot-bridge, a stake-lined 
box trap had been plunged deep in the water. As we 
were passing, the men lifted it out, dripping, ten superb 
trout dashing about wildly in it, in terror and pain ; the 
scarlet spots on their sides shone like garnet crystals in 
the sun, as the men emptied them on the ground, and 
killed them, one by one, Ivy knocking their heads against 
a stone with a sharp, quick stroke, which could not have 
been so cruel as it looked. 

On our way back to Bergen we passed several little row- 
boats, creeping slowly along, loaded high with juniper 



BERGEN DAYS. 243 

boughs. They looked like little green islands broken loose 
from their places and drifting out to sea. 

4 ' For somebody's sorrow ! " we said thoughtfully, as we 
watched them slowly fading from sight in the distance ; 
but we did not dream that in so few days the green boughs 
would have been strewn for the burial of the beloved mu- 
sician wiiose home we had just left. 

The day of the burial of Ole Bull is a day that will never 
be forgotten in Bergen. From mothers to children and to 
children's children will go down the stoiy of the day when 
from every house in Bergen Norway's flag floated at half- 
mast, because Ole Bull was dead, and the streets of Bergen 
for two miles — all the way from the quay to the cem- 
etery — were strewn with green juniper boughs, for the 
passage of the procession bearing his body in sad triumph 
to the grave. It must have been a touching sight. Early 
in the morning a steamer had gone down to Lysoen to 
receive the body. This steamer on entering the Bergen 
Fjord was met by fifteen others, all draped in black, to 
act as its convoy. As the fleet approached the harbor, 
guns fired from the fort, and answered by the steamers, 
made peals of echoes rolling away gloriously among the 
hills. The harbor was crowded with shipping from all 
parts of the world ; every vessel's flag was at half-mast. 
The qua} r was covered thick with green juniper, and fes- 
toons of green draped its whole front to the very water's 
edge. Eveiy shop and place of business was shut ; the 
whole population of the city stood waiting, silent, reverent, 
for the landing of the dead body of the artist who had 
loved Norway even as well as he loved the art to which 
his heart and life had been given. While the body was 
borne from the boat and placed in the high catafalque, a 
band played national airs of his arranging. Young girls 
dressed in black bore many of the trophies which had been 
given to him in foreign countries. His gold crown and 
orders were carried b}~ distinguished gentlemen of Bergen. 
As the procession passed slowly along, flowers were show- 
ered on the coffin, and tears were seen on man}' faces, but 
the silence was unbroken. 

At the grave, Norway's greatest orator and poet, Bjorn- 
stjerne Bjornson, spoke a few words of eloquent love and 
admiration. The grave was made on a commanding spot 



244 NORWAY, DENMARK, AND GERMANY. 

in the centre of Bergen's old cemete^, in which interments 
had been forbidden for man} r 3*ears. This spot, however, 
had been set apart more than thirty years ago, to be re- 
served for the interment of some great man. It had been 
refused to the father and framer of the Norwegian Consti- 
tution, Christie, whose statue stands in Bergen, but it was 
offered for Ole Bull ; so much more tenderly does the world 
love artists than statesmen ! The grave was lined with 
flowers and juniper, and juniper and flowers lay thick-strewn 
on the ground for a great space about. After the coffin had 
been put in the grave, and the relatives had gone away, 
there was paid a last tribute to Ole Bull, — a tribute more 
touching and of more worth than the king's letter, the 
gold crown, all the orders, and the flags of the world at 
half-mast ; meaning more love than the pine-strewn streets 
of the silent city and the tears on its people's faces, — a 
tribute from poor peasants, who had come in from the coun- 
tiy far and near, men who knew Ole Bull's music bj* heart, 
who in their lonely, poverty-stricken huts had been proud 
of the man who had pla}'ed their "Gamle Norge" before 
the kings of the earth. These men were there by hundreds, 
each bringing a green bough, or a fern, or a flower ; they 
waited humbly till all others had left the grave, then 
crowded up, and threw in, each man, the only token he had 
been rich enough to bring. The grave was filled to the 
brim ; and it is not irreverent to say that to Ole Bull, 
in heaven, there could come no gladder memory of earth 
than that the last honors paid him there were wild leaves 
and flowers of Norway, laid on his bod}' by the loving 
hands of Norway peasants. 



FOUR DAYS WITH SANNA. 

A pair of eyes too blue for gray, too gray for blue ; 
brown hair as dark as hair can be, being brown and not 
black ; a face fine without beautj', gentle but firm ; a look 
appealing, and yet full of a certain steadfastness, which 
one can see would be changed to fortitude at once if 
there were need ; a voice soft, low, and of a rich fulness, 
in which even Norwegian sks flow melodiously and 
broken English becomes music, — this is a little, these are 
a few features, of the portrait of Sanna, all that can be 
told to airy one not knowing Sanna herself. And to those 
who do know her it would not occur to speak of the eyes, 
or the hair, or the shy, brave look : to speak of her in de- 
scription would be lost time and a half-way impertinence ; 
she is simply " Sanna." 

When she said she would go with me and show me two 
of the most beautiful fjords of her country, her beloved 
Norway, I found no words in which to convey my glad- 
ness. He who journeys in a foreign country whose lan- 
guage he does not know is in sorrier plight for the time 
being than one born a deaf-mute. Deprived all of a sudden 
of his two chief channels of communication with his fellows, 
cut off in an hour from all which he has been wont to gain 
through his ears and express by his tongue, there is no 
telling his abject sense of helplessness. The more he has 
been accustomed to free intercourse, exact replies, ready 
compliance, and full utterance among his own people, the 
worse off he feels himself now. It is ceaseless humiliation 
added to perpetual discomfort. And the more novel the 
countiy, and the greater his eagerness to understand all he 
sees, the greater is his miseiy : the very things which, if 
he were not this pitiful deaf-mute, would give him his best 



246 NORWAY, DENMARK, AND GERMANY. 

pleasures, are turned into his chief torments ; even evident 
friendliness on the part of those he meets becomes as irri- 
tating a misery as the sound of waterfalls in the ears of 
Tantalus. Nowhere in the world can this misery of un- 
willing dumbness and deafness be greater, I think, than it is 
in Norway. The evident good-will and readiness to talk 
of the Norwegian people are as peculiarly their own as are 
their gay costumes and their flower-decked houses. Their 
desire to meet you half-way is so great that they talk on 
and on, in spite of the palpable fact that not one word of 
all they say conveys any idea to your mind ; and at last, 
when your despair has become contagious, and they accept 
the situation as hopeless, they seize your hand in both of 
theirs, and pressing it warmly let it fall with a smile and a 
shake of the head, which speak volumes of regret both for 
their own loss and for yours. 

It took much planning to contrive what we could best 
do in the four days which were all that we could have for 
our journey. The comings and goings of steamboats on 
the Norway fjords, their habits in the matter of arriving and 
departing, the possibilities and impossibilities of carioles, 
caleches, peasant carts and horses, the contingencies and 
uncertainties of beds at inns, — all these things, taken to- 
gether, make an} 7 programme of journeying, in an}' direction 
in Norway, an aggregate of complications, risks, and hin- 
drances enough to deter any but the most indomitable lovers 
of Nature and adventure. Long before it was decided which 
routes promised us most between a Saturday afternoon 
and the next Wednesday night, I had abandoned all effort 
to grapple understanding!}' with the problems, and left the 
planning entirely to my wiser and more resolute companion. 
Each suggestion that I made seemed to involve us in 
deeper perplexities. One steamer would set off at three 
in the morning ; another would arrive at the same hour ; 
a third would take us over the most beautiful parts of a 
fjord in the night ; on a fourth route nothing in the way 
of vehicles could be procured, except the peasant's cart, a 
thing in which no human being not born a Norwegian 
peasant can drive for half a day without being shaken to 
a jelly ; on a fifth we should have to wait three days for 
a return boat ; on another it was unsafe to go without 
having received beforehand the promise of a bed, the 



i 



FOUR DAYS WITH SANNA. 247 

accommodations for travellers being so scanty. The old 
puzzle of the fox and the goose and the corn is an a b c in 
comparison with the dilemma we were in. At last, when 
I thought I had finally arranged a scheme which would 
enable us to see two of the finest of the fjords within our 
prescribed time, a scheme which involved spending a day 
and a night in the little town of Gudvangen, in the valley 
of Nerodal, Sanna exclaimed, shuddering, "We cannot! 
we cannot ! The mountains are over us. We can sleep 
at Gudvangen; but a whole day? No! You shall not 
like a whole da} T at Gudvangen. The mountains are so — " 
And she finished her sentence by another shudder and a 
gesture of cowering, which were more eloquent than words. 
So the day at Gudvangen w T as given up, and it was arranged 
that we were to wait one clay at some other point on the 
road, w r herever it might seem good, and upon no account 
come to Gudvangen for anything more than to take the 
steamer awa}' from it. 

The heat of a Bergen noon is like a passing smile on a 
stern face. It was cold at ten, and it will be cold again 
long before sunset ; you have }'our winter wrap on your 
arm, and you dare not be separated from it, but the mid- 
day glares at and down on 30U, and makes the wrap 
seem not only intolerable but incongruous. As we drove 
to the steamer at twelve o'clock, with fur-trimmed wraps 
and heavy rugs filling the front seat of the carriage, and 
our faces flushed with heat, I said, "What an absurd 
amount of wraps for a midsummer journe}' ! I have a 
mind to let Nils cany back this heavy rug." 

" I think you shall be very glad if you have it," remarked 
Sanna. "Oh!" she exclaimed with a groan, "there is 
Bob." 

Bob is Sanna' s dog, — a small black spaniel, part setter, 
with a beautiful head and eye, and a devotion to his mis- 
tress which lovers might envy. Never, when in her pres- 
ence, does he remove his eyes from her for many minutes. 
He either revolves restlessly about her like an alert scout, 
or lays himself down with a sentry-like expression at her 
feet. 

"Oh, what is to do with Bob?" she continued, gazing 
helplessl} 7 at me. The rascal was bounding along the 
road, curvetting, and wagging his tail, and looking up at 



248 NORWAY, DENMARK, AND GERMANY. 

us with an audacious leer on his handsome face. ' ' He did 
understand perfectly that he should not come," said Sanna ; 
hearing which, Bob hung back, behind the carriage. 

" Nils must carry him back," I said. Then, relenting, 
seeing the look of distress on Sanna's face, I added, 
"Could we not take him with us?" 

"Oh, no, it must be impossible," she replied. "It is 
for the lambs. He does drive them and frighten them. 
He must stay, but we shall have trouble." 

Fast the little Norwegian ponies clattered down to the 
wharf. No Bob. As we went on board he was nowhere 
to be seen. Anxiously Sanna searched for him, to give 
him into Nils's charge. He was not to be found. The 
boat began to move. Still no Bob. We settled ourselves 
comfortably ; alreacty the burdensome rug was welcome. 
" I really think. Bob must have missed us in the crowd," 
I said. 

" I do not know, I do not think," replied Sanna, her 
face full of perplexity. "Oh!" with a cry of dismay. 
"He is here ! " 

There he was ! Abject, nearly dragging his bod}' on 
the deck like a snake, his tail between his legs, fawning, 
cringing, his eyes fixed on Sanna, he crawled to her feet. 
Only his eyes told that he felt any emotion except remorse ; 
they betra} T ed him ; their expression was the drollest I 
ever saw on a dumb creature's face. It was absurd ; it 
was impossible, incredible, if one had not seen it ; as 
plainly as if words had been spoken, it avowed the whole 
plot, the distinct exultation in its success. " Here I am," 
it said, " and I know very well that now the steamer has 
begun to moA^e you are compelled to take me with you. 
My heart is nearly broken with terror and grief at the 
thought of your displeasure, but all the same I can hardly 
contain myself for delight at having outwitted you so com- 
pletely." All this while he was wriggling closer and closer 
to her feet, watching her eye, as a child watches its moth- 
er's, for the first show of relenting. Of course we began- 
to laugh. At the first beginning of a smile in Sanna's 
eyes, he let his tail out from between his legs, and began 
to flap it on the deck ; as the smile broadened, he gradually 
rose to his feet ; and b} T the time we had fairly burst into un- 
controlled laughter, he was erect, gambolling around us like 






FOUR DAYS WITH SANNA. 249 

a kid, and joining in the chorus of our merriment by a series 
of short, sharp yelps of delight, which, being interpreted, 
would doubtless have been something like, "Ha, ha! 
Beat 'em, and they 're not going to thrash me, and I 'm 
booked for the whole journey now, spite of fate ! Ha, 
ha ! " Then he stretched himself at our feet, laid his nose 
out flat on the deck, and went to sleep as composedly as if 
he had been on the hearth-rug at home ; far more com- 
posedly than he would had he dreamed of the experiences 
in store for him. 

" Poor Bob ! " said Sanna. " It must be that we shall 
send him back by the steamer." Poor Bob, indeed ! Long 
before we reached our first landing, Bob was evidently 
sea-sick. The beautiful water of the great Hardanger 
Fjord was as smooth as an inland lake ; changing from 
dark and translucent green in the narrowing channels, 
where the bold shores came so near together that we could 
count the trees, to brilliant and sparkling blue in the wider 
opens. But little cared Bob for the beaut}' of the water ; 
little did it comfort him that the boat glided as gently as 
is possible for a boat to move. He had never been on a 
boat before, and did not know it was smooth. Piteously 
he roamed about, from place to place, looking off; then 
he would come and stand before Sanna, quivering in every 
fibre, and looking up at her with sorrowful appeal in his 
e}-es. His thoughts were plainly written in his countenance 
now, as before ; but nobody could have had the heart to 
laugh at him. Poor fellow ! He was not the first creature 
that has been bowed clown b}' the curse of a granted prayer. 

Presently there came a new trouble. All along the 
Hardanger Fjord are little hamlets and villages and clus- 
ters of houses, tucked in in nooks among rocks and on 
rims of shore at the base of the high, stony walls of 
mountains, and snugged away at the heads of inlets. 
Many of these are places of summer resort for the Bergen 
people, who go out of town into the country in summer, I 
fanc} T , somewhat as the San Francisco people do, not to 
find coolness, but to find warmth ; for the air in these 
sheltered nooks and inlets of the fjords is far softer than 
it is in Bergen, which has the strong sea wind blowing in 
its teeth all the while. On Saturdays the steamers for the 
Hardanger country are crowded with Bergen men going 



250 NORWAY, DENMARK, AND GERMANY. 

out to spend the Sunda} 7 with their families or friends who 
are rusticating at these little villages. At many of these 
spots there is no landing except b} T small boats ; and it 
was one of the pleasantest features of the sail, the frequent 
pausing of the steamer off some such nook, and the putting 
out of the rowboats to fetch or to cany passengers. They 
would row alongside, half a dozen at a time, bobbing like 
corks, and the agile Norwegians would skip in and out of 
and across them as deftly as if they were stepping on firm 
floor. The Norwegian peasant is as much at home in a 
boat as a snail in his shell, — women as well as men ; the) 7 
row, stand, leap, gesticulate, lift burdens, with only a rock- 
ing plank between their feet and fathomless water, and 
never seem to know that they are not on solid ground. In 
fact, they are far more graceful afloat than on ground : on 
the land they shuffle and walk in a bent and toil-worn at- 
titude, the result of perpetual carrying of loads on their 
backs ; but they bend to their oars with ease and freedom, 
and wheel and turn and shoot and back their little skiffs 
with a dexterhry which leaves no room for doubt that they 
can do anything they choose on water. It would not have 
astonished me, any da}', to see a Norwegian coming towards 
me in two boats at once, one foot in each boat, walking on 
the water in them, as a man walks on snow in snow-shoes. 
I never did see it, but I am sure the}' could do it. 

When these boats came alongside, Bob peered wistfully 
over the railings, but did not offer to stir. The connec- 
tion between this new variety of water craft and terra 
firma he did not comprehend. But at the first landing 
which we reached, he gazed for a moment intently, and 
then bounded forward like a shot, across the gangway, in 
among the crowd on the wharf, in a twinkling. 

" Oh ! " shrieked Sanna, " Bob is on shore ! " And she 
rushed after him, and brought him back, crestfallen. But 
he had learned the trick of it ; and after that, his knack 
at disappearing some minutes before we came to a wharf — 
thereb^y luring us into a temporary forgetfulness of him 
— and then, when we went to seek him, making himself 
invisible among the people going on shore, was some- 
thing so uncann} T that my respect for him fast deepened 
into an awe which made an odd undercurrent of anx- 
iet3 T , mingling with my enjo3'ment of the beauties of the 



FOUR DAYS WITH SANNA. 251 

fjord. It was strange, while looking at grand tiers of hills 
rising one behind the other, with precipitous fronts, the 
nearer ones wooded, the farther ones bare and ston}-, some- 
times almost solid rock, walling the beautiful green and 
bine water as if it had been a way hewn for it to pass ; 
shining waterfalls pouring down from the highest summits, 
straight as a beam of light, into the fjord, sometimes in 
full torrents dazzling bright, sometimes in single threads 
as if of ravelled cloud, sometimes in a broken line of 
round disks of glittering white on the dark green, the 
course of the water in the intervals between being marked 
only by a deeper green and a sunken line in the foliage, — 
it was strange, side by side with the wonder at all this 
beauty, to be wondering to one's self also what Bob would 
do next. But so it was hour by hour, all of our way up 
the Hardanger Fjord, till we came, in the early twilight at 
half-past ten o'clock, to Eide, our journey's end. The 
sun had set — if in a Norway summer it can ever be trul} T 
said to set — two hours before, and in its slow sinking had 
turned the mountains, first pink, then red, then to an opal- 
ine tint, blending both pink and red with silver gray and 
white ; all shifting and changing so fast that the moun- 
tains themselves seemed to be quivering beneath. Then, 
of a sudden, they lost color and turned graj- and dark blue. 
Belts and downstretching lines of snow shone out sternly 
on their darkened summits ; a shadow}' half-moon rose 
above them in the southeast, and the strange luminous 
night lit up the little hamlet of Eide, almost light like day, 
as we landed. 

At first sight Eide looked as if the houses, as well as 
the people, had just run down to the shore to meet the 
boat : from the front windows of the houses one might 
easily look into the cabin windows of the boat, — so 
narrow strips of shore do the mountain walls leave some- 
times along these fjords, and such marvellous depth of 
water do the fjords bring to the mountains' feet. 

" Have you written for rooms? Where are } t ou going? 
There is n't a bed in Eide," were the first words that 
greeted us from some English people who had left Bergen 
days before, and whom we never expected to see again. 
The disappearing, reappearing, and turning up of one's 
travelling acquaintances in Norwa}- is one of the distinc- 



252 NORWAY, DENMARK, AND GERMANY. 

tive experiences of the county. The chief routes of tour- 
ist travel are so involved with each other, and so planned 
for exchange, interchange, and succession of goers and 
comers, that the perpetual rencontres of chance acquaint- 
ances are amusing. It is like a performance of the figures 
of a countiy-dance on a colossal scale, so many miles to a 
figure ; and if one sits down quietly at any one of the large 
inns for a week, the great body of Norway tourists for that 
week will be pretty sure to pass under his inspection. 

At Holt's, in Bergen, one sees, sa} T forty travellers, at 
breakfast, any morning. Before supper at eight in the 
evening these fort}' have gone their waj's, and a second 
fort} T have arrived, and so on ; and wherever he goes dur- 
ing the following week he will meet detachments of these 
same bands : each man sure that he has just done the one 
thing best worth doing, and done it in the best way ; each 
eloquent in praise or dispraise of the inns, the roads, and 
the people, and read}' with his " Oh, but you must be sure 
to see " this, that, or the other. 

There were those who sat up all night in Eide, that night, 
for want of a bed ; but Bob and we were well lodged in a 
pretty bedroom, with two windows white-curtained and two 
beds white-ruffled to the floor, on which were spread rugs 
of black-and-white goatskins edged with coarse home-made 
blue flannel. In the parlor and the dining-room of the 
little inn, carved book-cases and pipe-cases hung on the 
walls ; ivies trained everywhere ; white curtains, a piano, 
black-worsted-covered high-backed chairs, spotless table 
linen, and old silver gave an air of old-fashioned refine- 
ment to the rooms, which was a surprise. 

The landlad}' wore the peasant's costume of the Har- 
danger country : the straight black skirt to the ankles, 
long white apron, sleeveless scarlet jacket, with a gay 
beaded stomacher over a full white blouse, shining silver 
ornaments at throat and wrists, and on her head the ele- 
gant and dignified head-dress of fine crimped white lawn, 
which makes the Hardanger wives by far the most pictu- 
resque women to be seen in all Norwa}\ 

At seven in the morning a young peasant girl opened 
our bedroom door cautiously to ask if we would have coffee 
in bed. Bob flew at her with a fierce }'elp, which made 
her retreat hastily, and call for protection. Being sharply 



FOUR DAYS WITH SANNA. 253 

reproved by Sanna, Bob stood doggedly defiant in the 
middle of the floor, turning his reproachful eyes from her to 
the stranger, and back again, plainly saying, "Ungrateful 
one ! How should I know she was not an enenry ? That 
is the way enemies approach." The girl wore the peasant 
maiden's dress : a short black skirt bound with scarlet 
braid, sewed to a short sleeveless green jacket, which was 
little wider than a pair of suspenders between the shoulders 
behind. Her full, long-sleeved white blouse came up high 
in the throat, and was fastened there b}' two silver buttons 
with Maltese crosses hanging from them b\- curiously 
twisted chains. Her yellow hair was braided in two thick 
braids, and wound tight round her head like a wreath. 
She had a fair skin, tender, honest blue eyes, and a face 
serious enough for a Madonna. But she laughed when 
she brought us the eggs for our breakfast, kept warm in 
many folds of linen napkin held down b}^ a great motherly 
hen of gray china with a red crest on its head. 

The house was a small white cottage ; at the front door 
a square porch, large enough to hold two tables and seats 
for a dozen people ; opposite this a vine-wreathed arch and 
gate led into a garden, at the foot of which ran a noisy 
little river. An old bent peasant woman was always going 
back and forth between the house and the river, carrying 
water in two pails hung from a }'oke on her shoulders. 
A bit of half-mowed meadow joined the garden. It had 
been mowed at intervals, a little piece at a time, so that 
the surface was a patchwork of different shades of green. 
The hay was hung out to dr}^ on short lines of fence here 
and there. Grass is always dried in this way in Norway, 
and can hang on the fences for two weeks and not be 
hurt, even if it is repeatedly wet by rain. One narrow, 
straggling street led off up the hillside, and suddenly dis- 
appeared as if the mountains had swallowed it. The 
houses were thatched, with laj^ers of birch bark put under 
the boards ; sods of earth on top ; and flowers blooming 
on them as in a garden. One roof was a bed of wild pan- 
sies, and another of a tiny pink flower as fine as a grass ; 
and young shoots of birch waved on them both. The little 
river which ran past the inn garden had come down from 
the mountains through terraced meadows, which were about 
half and half meadow and terrace ; stony and swampy, 



254 NORWAY, DENMARK, AND GERMANY. 

and full of hillocks and hollows. New England has acres 
of fields like them ; only here there were big blue hare- 
bells and pink heath, added to clover and buttercups, 
wild parsley and yarrow. On thry pebbly bits of island 
here and there in the brook grew purple thistles, "snow 
flake," and bushes of birch and ash. 

Bob rollicked in the lush grass, as we picked our wa}^ 
among the moist hollows of this flowery meadow. In 
Sanna's hand dangled a bit of rope, which he eyed suspi- 
ciously. She had brought it with her to tie him up, when 
the hour should come for him to be carried on board the 
steamer. He could not have known this, for he had never 
been tied up in his life. But new dangers had roused new 
wariness in his acute mind : he had distinctly heard the word 
" steamer" several times that morning, and understood it. 
I said to him immediately after breakfast, " Bob, you have 
to go home b} T the steamer this morning." He instantly crept 
under the sofa, his tail between his legs, and cow r ered and 
crouched in the farthest corner ; no persuasions could lure 
him out, and his eyes were piteous beyond description. 
Not until we had walked some distance from the house, in 
a direction opposite to the steamer wharf, did he follow 
us. Then he came bounding, relieved for the time being 
from anxiety. At last Sanna, in a feint of play, tied the 
rope around his neck. His bewilderment and terror were 
tragic. Setting all four feet firmly on the ground, he re- 
fused to stir, except as he was dragged by main force. 
It was plain that he would be choked to death before he 
would obey. The rope project must be abandoned. Per- 
haps he could be lured on board, following Sanna. Vain 
hope ! Long before we reached the w T harf, the engine of 
the boat gave a shrill whistle. At the first sound of it 
Bob darted away like the wind, up the road, past the 
hotel, out of sight in a minute. We followed him a few 
rods, and then gave it up. Again he had outwitted us. 
We walked to the steamer, posted a letter, sat down, and 
waited. The steamer blew five successive signals, and 
then glided awa}^ from the wharf. In less than three 
minutes, before she was many rods off, lo, Bob ! back 
again, prancing around us with glee, evidently keeping 
his eye on the retreating steamboat, and chuckling to 
himself at his escape. 



FOUR DAYS WITH SANNA. 255 

" O Bob, Bob ! " groaned Sanna. " What is to do with 
you?" 

We were to set off for Vossevangen by carriage at three ; 
at half-past two poor Bob was carried, struggling, into the 
wood-shed, and tied up. His cries were piteous, almost 
more than we could bear. I am sure he understood the 
whole plot ; but the worst was to come. By somebody's 
carelessness, the wood-shed door was opened just as we 
were driving away from the porch. With one convulsive 
leap and cry, Bob tore his rope from the log to which it 
was tied, and darted out. The stable boys caught him, 
and held him fast ; his cries were human. Sanna buried 
her face in her hands and exclaimed, " Oh, say to the 
driver that he go so fast as he can ! " And we drove away, 
leaving the poor, faithful, loving creature behind, to be 
sent by express back to Bergen on the steamer the next day. 
It was like leaving a little child alone among strangers, 
heart-broken and terrified. When we returned to Bergen 
we learned that he had touched neither food nor drink till 
he reached home, late the next night. 

To go from Eicle to Vossevangen, one must begin by 
climbing up out of Eide. It is at the bottom of a well, 
walled by green hills and snow-topped mountains ; at the 
top of the well the country spreads out for a little, only to 
meet higher hills, higher mountains. Here lies a great 
lake, rimmed by broad borders of reeds, which shook and 
glistened in the wind and sun like the spears of half- 
drowned armies as we passed. Clumps and groves of 
ash-trees on the shores of this lake looked like huge clumsy 
torches set in the ground : their tops had been cut down 
again and again, till they had grown as broad as they were 
high. The leaves are used for the feed of sheep, and the 
boughs for firewood : and as in the frugal Norwegian 
living nothing that can be utilized is left to lie idle, never 
an ash-tree has the chance to shoot up, become tall and 
full of leaf. Magpies flitted in and out among them. 

k ' One is for sorrow, and two are for joy, three must be 
a marriage, and four do bring good fortune, we do say in 
NorwajV said Sanna. "But I think we shall have all 
sorrow and joy, and to be married many times over, if it 
be true," she added, as the noisy, showy creatures contin- 
ued to cross our road bv twos and threes. 



256 NORWAY, DENMARK, AND GERMANY. 

High up on the hills, just in the edge of snow patches, 
soeters were to be seen, their brown roofs looking as much 
a part of the lonely Nature as did the waterfalls and the 
pine-trees. On all sides shone the water, — trickling fosses 
down precipices, outbursting fosses from ravines and dells ; 
just before us rose a wall some three thousand feet high, 
over which leaped a foaming cataract. 

"We shall go there," said Sauna, pointing up to it. Sure 
enough, we did. By loops so oval and narrow they seemed 
twisted as if to thread their way, as eyes of needles are 
threaded, the road wound and doubled, and doubled and 
wound, six times crossing the hill front in fifteen hun- 
dred feet. At each double, the valle}' sank below us ; the 
lake sank ; the hills which walled the lake sank ; the road 
was only a broad rift among piled bowlders. In many 
places these bowlders were higher than our heads ; but 
there was no sense of danger, for the road was a perfect 
road, smooth as a macadamized turnpike. Along its outer 
edge rows of thickly set rocks, several feet high, and so 
near each other that no carriage could possibly fall be- 
tween ; in the most dangerous places stout iron bars were 
set from rock to rock ; these loops of chain ladder up the 
precipice were as safe as a summer pathwaj^ in a green 
meadow. On a stone bridge of three arches we crossed 
the waterfall : basins of rocks above us, filled with spr'ay ; 
basins and shelves and ledges of rocks below us, filled with 
spray ; the bridge black and slippery wet, and the air thick 
with spray, like a snow-storm ; precipices of water on the 
right and the left. It was next to being an eagle on wing 
in a storm to cross that bridge in upper air. At the sixth 
turn we came out abreast of the top of the waterfall, and 
in a moment more had left all the stress and storm 
and tumult of waters behind us, and glided into a sombre, 
still roadway beside a calm little river deep in a fir forest. 
Only the linnaea had won bloom out of this darkness ; its 
courageous little tendrils wreathed the tree trunks nestled 
among the savage rocks, and held up myriads of pink cups 
wet with the ceaseless spray. It was a dreary, lonely 
place ; miles of gaunt swamp, forest, and stony moor ; 
here and there a farm-house, silent as if deserted. 

" Where are all the people? Why do we not see any 
one moving about the houses ? " I asked. 



FOUR DAYS WITH SANNA. 257 

"In the house, reading, every one," replied Sanna. 
"On a Sunday afternoon, if there is no service in church, 
all Norwegian farm people do go into their houses, and 
spend all afternoon in reading and in religion." 

At last we reached a more open countiy, — an off-look to 
the west ; new ranges of snow-topped mountains came in 
sight. We began to descend ; another silent river slipping 
down by our side ; two more dark, shining lakes. On the 
shore of one, a peasant man — the first living creature we 
had seen for ten miles — was taking his cart out of a little 
shed by the roadside. This shed was the only sign of 
human habitation to be seen in the region. His horse 
stood near by, with a big barrel slung on each side : they 
were barrels of milk, which had just been brought down in 
this wa} T from a soeter which we could see, well up in the 
cloud region, far above the woods on the left. Down 
the steep path from this sceter the man had walked, and the 
horse bearing the barrels of milk had followed. Now the 
barrels were to be put in the cart, and carried to Eide. 
Ten miles more that milk was to be carried before it 
reached its market ; and 3 T et, at the little inn in Eide, for 
a breakfast, at which one ma} r drink all the milk he desires, 
he will be asked to pay only thirty-five cents. What else 
beside milk? Fresh salmon, trout, two kinds of lye bread 
and two of white, good butter, six kinds of cheese, her- 
rings done in oil and laurel leaves in tnry wooden barrels, 
cold sausage, ham, smoked salmon (raw), coffee and tea, 
and perhaps — wild strawberries : this will be the Eide 
summer-morning breakfast. The cheese feature in the 
Norwegian breakfast is startling at first : all colors, sizes, 
shapes, and smells known of cheese ; it must be owned 
the} 7 are not savory for breakfast, but the Norwegian eats 
them almost as a rite. He has a proverb in regard to 
cheese as we have of fruit : " Gold in the morning, silver 
at noon, and lead at night;" and he lives up to it more 
implicitly than we do to ours. 

As we neared Vossevangen, the silent river grew noisier 
and noisier, and at last let out all its reserves in a great 
torrent which leaped down into the v alley with a roar. 
This torrent also was bridged at its leap ; and the bridge 
seemed to be in a perpetual quiver from the shock of it. 
The sides of the rocky gors-o below glistened black like 

17 



258 NORWAY, DENMARK, AND GERMANY. 

ebony ; they had been worn into columnar grooves b}- the 
centuries of whirling waters ; the knotted roots of a fir 
forest jutted out above them, and long spikes of a beautiful 
white flower hung out from their crevices in masses of 
waving snowy bloom. It looked like a variety of the 
house-leek, but no human hand could reach it to make 
sure. 

Vossevangen is a little farming hamlet on the west shore 
of a beautiful lake. The region is one of the best agricul- 
tural districts in western Norway; the "Vos" farmers 
are held to be fortunate and well to do, and their butter 
and cheese always bring high prices in market. 

On the eastern shore of the lake is a chain of mountains, 
from two to four thousand feet high ; to the south, west, 
and north rise the green hills on which the farms lie ; above 
these, again, rise other hills, higher and more distant, 
where in the edges of the snow tracts or buried in fir for- 
ests are the sceters, the farmers' summer homes. 

As we drove into the village we met the peasants going 
home from church : the women in short green or black 
gowns, with gay jackets and white handkerchiefs made 
into a flying-buttress sort of head-dress on their heads ; the 
men with knee-breeches, short vests, and jackets thick 
trimmed with silver buttons. Every man bowed and 
every woman courtesied as we passed. To pass any 
human being on the highway without a sign or token of 
greeting would be considered in Norway the height of ill 
manners ; any child seen to do it would be sharply 
reproved. Probably few things would astonish the rural 
Norwegian more than to be told that among the highly 
civilized it is considered a mark of good breeding, if you 
chance to meet a fellow-man on the highway, to go by him 
with no more recognition of his presence than you would 
give to a tree or a stone wall. 

It is an odd thing that a man should be keeping the 
Vossevangen Hotel to-da} T who served in America's civil 
war, was for two 3'ears in one of the New York regiments, 
and saw a good deal of active service. He was called 
back to Norway by the death of his father, which made it 
necessar}' for him to take charge of the fanrity estate in 
Vossevangen. He has married a Vossevangen woman, and 
is likelv to end his days there ; but he hankers for Chicago, 



FOUR DAYS WITH SANNA. 259 

and always will. He keeps a fairly good little hotel, on 
the shores of the lake, with a row of willow-trees in front ; 
dwarf apple-trees, gooseberry and currant bushes, and 
thickets of rhubarb in his front yard ; roses, too, besides 
larkspur and phlox ; but the rhubarb has the place of honor. 
The dining-room and the parlor were, like those at Eide, 
adorned with ivies and flowering plants ; oleanders in the 
windows and potted carnations on the table. In one cor- 
ner of the dining-room was a large round table covered 
with old silver for sale : tankards, chains, belts, buttons, 
coins, rings, buckles, brooches, ornaments of all kinds, — 
hundreds of dollars' worth of things. There they la}*, day 
and night, open to all who came ; and the}* had done this, 
the landlady said, for years, and not a single article had 
ever been stolen : from which it is plain that not only 
is the Norwegian honest himself, there must be a conta- 
gion in his honesty, which spreads it to all travellers in his 
country. 

The next morning, early, we set off in a peasant's cart 
to visit some of the farm-houses. 

" Now you shall see," said Sanna, -- that it w r as not pos- 
sible if you had all day to ride in this kind of wagon." 

It did not take long to prove the truth of her remark. 
A shallow wooden box set on two heavy wheels ; a wooden 
seat raised on two slanting wooden braces, so high that 
one's feet but just reach the front edge of the box ; no dasher, 
no sides to seat, no anything, apparently, after you are up, 
except your hard wooden seat and two pounding wheels 
below, — this is the peasant wagon. The horse, low clown 
between two heavy thills, is without traces, pulls by a 
breast collar, is guided by rope reins, and keeps his heels 
half the time under the front edge of the box. The driver 
stands up in the box behind you, and the rope reins are in 
your hair, or on your neck, shoulders, ears, as may be. 
The walloping motion of this kind of box, drawn by a 
frisky Norwegian horse over rough roads, is droll beyond 
description. But wiien it comes to going down hills in it, 
and down hills so steep that the box appears to be on the 
point of dumping you between the horse's ears at each 
wallop, it ceases to be droll, and becomes horrible. Our 
driver was a splendid specimen of a man, — six feet tall, 
strong built, and ruddy. When he found that I was an 



260 NORWAY, DENMARK, AND GERMANY. 

American, he glowed all over, and began to talk rapidly 
to Sanna. He had six brothers in America. 

" They do say that they all have it very good there," in- 
terpreted Sanna; "and he thinks to go there himself so 
soon as there is money to take all. It must be that Amer- 
ica is the best country in the world, to have it so good there 
that every man can have it good." 

The roads up the hills were little more than paths. 
Often for many rods there was no trace of wheels on the 
stony ledges ; again the track disappeared in a bit of soft 
meadow. As we climbed, the valley below us rounded and 
hollowed, and the lake grew smaller and smaller to the eye ; 
the surrounding hills opened up, showing countless valleys 
winding here and there among them. It was a surpassingly 
beautiful view. Vast tracts of firs, inky black in the dis- 
tances, emphasized the glittering of the snow fields above 
them and the sunny green of the nearer foregrounds below. 

The first farm which we visited lay about three miles north 
of the village, — three miles north and up. The buildings 
were huddled together, some half dozen of them, in a hap- 
hazard sort of way, with no attempt at order, no front, no 
back, and no particular reason for approaching one way 
rather than another. Walls of hewn logs, black with age ; 
roofs either thatched, or covered with huge slabs of slate, 
laid on irregularly and moss-grown ; rough stones or logs 
for doorsteps ; so little difference between the buildings 
that one was at a loss to know which were meant for dwell- 
ings and which for barns, — a more unsightly spot could 
hardly be imagined. But the owners had as quick an in- 
stinct of hospitality as if the}' dwelt in a palace. No sooner 
did Sanna mention that I was from America, and wished 
to see some of the Norwegian farm-houses, than their faces 
brightened with welcome and good-will, and they were 
ready to throw open every room and show me all their 
simple stores. 

" There is not a man in all Vos," the}' said, " who has 
not a relative in America." And the}' asked eager question 
after questiou, in insatiable curiosity, about the unknown 
country whither their friends had gone. 

The wives and daughters of the family were all away, up 
at the sceter with the cows ; only the men and the servant 
maids were left at home to make the ha} 7 . Would I not 



FOUR DAYS WITH SANNA. 261 

o-o up to the soeter? The mistress would be distressed 
that an American lady had visited the farm in her absence. 
I could easily go to the sceter in a day. It was only five 
hours on horseback, and about a half-hour's walk, at the 
last, over a path too rough even for riding. Very warmly the 
men urged Sanna to induce me to make the trip. They 
themselves would leave the haying and go with me, if I 
would only go ; and I must never think I had seen Nor- 
wegian farming unless I had seen the soeter also, the}^ said. 

The maids were at dinner in the kitchen. It was a large 
room, with walls not more than eight feet high, black with 
smoke ; and in the centre a square stone trough, above 
which was built a funnel chimney. In this hollow trough 
a fire smouldered, and above it hung an enormous black 
caldron, full of beer, which was being brewed. One of the 
maids sprang from her dinner, lifted a trap door in the 
floor, disappeared in the cellar, and presently returned, 
bringing a curious wooden drinking-vessel shaped like a 
great bowl, with a prow at each side for handles, and 
painted in gay colors. This was brimming full of new 
beer, just brewed. Sanna whispered to me that it would 
be bad manners if we did not drink freely of it. It was 
passed in turn to each member of the party. The driver, 
eying me sharply as I forced down a few mouthfuls of the 
nauseous drink, said something to Sanna. 

"He asks if American ladies do not like beer," said 
Sanna. " He is mortified that 3-011 do not drink. It will 
be best that we drink all we can. It is all what they have. 
Only I do hope that the} T give us not brandy." 

There was no window in the kitchen, no ventilation ex- 
cept through the chimney and the door. A bare wooden 
table, wooden chairs, a few shelves, where were ranged 
some iron utensils, were all the furniture of the gloomy 
room. The maids' dinner consisted of a huge plate of 
fladbrod and jugs of milk ; nothing else. They would live 
on that, Sanna said, for weeks, and work in the hay-fields 
from sunrise till midnight. 

Opposite the kitchen was the living-room, — the same 
smokry log walls, bare floors, wooden chairs and benches. 
The expression of poveiiy was dismal. 

" I thought you said these people were well to do ! " I 
exclaimed. 



262 NORWAY, DENMARK, AND GERMANY. 

"So they are," replied Sanna. " Tb^y are very well 
off; the} T do not know that it is not comfort to be like this. 
They shall have money in banks, these people. All the 
farmers in Vos are rich." 

Above the living-room were two bedrooms and clothes- 
rooms. Here, in guy painted scarlet boxes and hanging 
from lines, were the clothes of the family and the bed linen of 
the house. Mistress and maid alike must keep their clothes 
in this common room. The trunks were ranged around 
the sides of the room, each locked with a key big enough 
to lock prison doors. On one side of one of the rooms 
were three bunk beds built in under the eaves. These were 
filled with loose straw, and had only blankets for covers. 
Into this straw the Norwegian burrows by night, rolled in 
his blankets. The beds can never be moved, for they are 
built in with the framework of the house. No wonder 
that the Norwegian flea has, by generations of such good 
lodging and food, become a triumphant Bedouin marauder, 
in comparison with whom the fleas of all other countries 
are too petty to deserve mention. 

The good-natured farmer opened his mother's box as 
well as his wife's, and with awkward and unaccustomed 
hands shook out their Sunday costumes for us to see. 
From another box, filled with soft blankets and linen, he 
took out a bottle of brandy, and pouring some into a little 
silver bowl, with the same prow-shaped handles as the 
wooden one we had seen in the kitchen, pressed us to 
drink. One drop of it was like liquid fire. He seemed 
hurt that we refused more, and poured it down his own 
throat at a gulp, without change of a muscle. Then he 
hid the brandy bottle again under the blankets, and the 
little silver cup in the till of his mother's chest, and locked 
them both up with the huge kej-s. 

Downstairs we found an aged couple, who had come 
from another of the buildings, hearing of our presence. 
These were the grandparents. The old woman was eight}'- 
four, and was knitting briskly without glasses. She took 
us into the storerooms, where were bins of flour and grain ; 
hams of beef and pork hanging up ; wooden utensils of all 
sorts, curiously carved and stained wooden spoons, among 
other things, — a cask full of them, put away to be used 
when they had a merry-making. Here also were stacks of 



FOUR DAYS WITH SANXA. 263 

fladbrod. This is the staple of the Norwegian's living ; it 
is a coarse bread made of dark flour, in cakes as thin as a 
wafer and as big round as a barrel. This is baked once a 
year, in the spring, is piled up in stacks in the storerooms, 
and keeps good till the spring baking comes round again. 
It is very sweet and nutritious : one might easily fare 
worse than to have to make a meal of it with milk. On 
one of the storeroom shelves I spied an old wooden 
drinking-bowl, set awa}' with dried peas in it. It had been 
broken, and riveted together in the bottom, but would no 
longer hold water, so had been degraded to this use. Jt 
had once been gayry painted, and had a motto in old Nor- 
wegian around the edge: " Drink in good- will, and give 
thanks to God." I coveted the thing, and offered to buy 
it. It was a stud m y to see the old people consult with each 
other if the}' should let it go. It seemed that when they 
first went to housekeeping it had been given to them by the 
woman's mother, and was an old bowl even then. It was 
certainty over a hundred 3-ears old, and how much more 
there was no knowing. After long discussion they decided 
to sell it to me for four kroner (about one dollar), which 
the son thought (Sanna said) was a shameful price to ask 
for an old broken bowl. But he stood by in filial submis- 
sion, and made no loud objection to the barter. The old 
woman also showed us a fine blanket, winch had been spun 
and woven by her mother a hundred years ago. It was as 
ga}~ of color and fantastic of design as if it had been made 
in Algiers. This too she was willing to sell for an absurdly 
small price, but it was too heavy to bring away. At wed- 
dings and other festivities these gay blankets are hung on 
the walls ; and it is the custom for neighbors to lend all 
they can on such occasions. 

The next farm we visited belonged to the richest people 
in Vos. It lay a half-mile still higher up, and the road 
leading to it seemed perilously steep. The higher we went, 
the greater the profusion of flowers : the stony way led us 
through tracts of bloom, in blue and gold ; tall spikes of 
mullein in clumps like hollyhocks, and " shepherd's bells" 
in great purple patches. 

The buildings of this farm were clustered around a sort 
of court-yard enclosure, roughly flagged by slate. Most 
of the roofs were also slated ; one or two were thatched, 



264 NORWAY, DENMARK, AND GERMANY. 

and these thatched roofs were the only thing that redeemed 
the gloom of the spot, the sods on these being bright with 
pansies and grasses and waving raspberry bushes. Here 
also we found the men of the family alone at home, the 
women being gone on their summering at the sceter. The 
youngest son showed us freely from room to room, and 
displayed with some pride the trunks full of blankets and 
linen, and the rows of women's dresses hanging in the 
chambers. On two sides of one large room these were 
hung thick one above another, no variety in them, and no 
finery ; merely a succession of strong, serviceable petti- 
coats, of black, green, or gray woollen. The gay jackets 
and stomachers were packed away in trunks ; huge fur- 
lined coats, made of the same shape for men and for 
women, hung in the storeroom. Some of the trunks were 
red, painted in ga} r colors ; some were of polished cedar, 
finished with fine brass mountings. As soon as a Norwe- 
gian girl approaches womanhood, one of these trunks is 
given her, set in its place in the clothes-room, and her 
accumulations begin. Clothes, bedding, and silver orna- 
ments seem to be the only things for which the Norwegian 
peasant spends his money. In neither of these houses was 
there an article of superfluous furniture, not even of ordi- 
nary comfort. In both were the same bunk beds, built 
in under the eaves ; the same loose, tossed straw, with 
blankets for covering ; and only the coarsest wooden chairs 
and benches for seats. The young man opened his moth- 
er's trunk, and took from one corner a beautiful little silver 
beaker, with curling, prow-shaped handles. In this the 
old lad}' had packed awaj T her silver brooches, buttons, and 
studs for the summer. Side by side with them, thrown in 
loosely among her white head-dresses and blouses, were 
half a dozen small twisted rolls of white bread. Sanna ex- 
plained this by saying that the Norwegians never have this 
bread except at their most important festivals ; it is consid- 
ered a great luxury, and these had no doubt been put away 
as a future treat, as we should put away a bit of wedding- 
cake to keep. Very irreverently the son tipped out all his 
mother's ornaments into the bottom of the trunk, and pro- 
ceeded to fill the little beaker with fiery brandy from a 
bottle which had been hid in another corner. From lip to 
lip it was passed, returning to him wellnigh untasted ; but 



FOUR DAYS WITH SANNA. 265 

he poured the whole down afra draught, smacked his lips, 
and tossed the cup back into the trunk, dripping with the 
brandy. Very much that good old Norwegian dame, when 
she comes down in the autumn, will wonder, I fane}', what 
has happened to her nicely packed trunk of underclothes, 
dry bread, and old silver. 

There were several storerooms in these farm buildings, 
and they were well filled with food, grain, flour, dried 
meats, fish, and towers of fladbrod. Looms with partly 
finished webs of cloth in them were there set away till win- 
ter ; baskets full of carved 3-ellow spoons hung on the wall. 
In one of the rooms, standing on the sill of the open 
window, were two common black glass bottles, with a few 
pond-lilies in each, — the only bit of decoration or token 
of love of the beautiful we had found. Seeing that I looked 
at the lilies with admiration, the young man took them out, 
wiped their dripping stems on his coat-sleeve, and pre- 
sented them to me with a bow that a courtier might have 
envied. The grace, the courtesy, of the Xorwegian peas- 
ant's bow is something that must date centuries back. 
Surely there is nothing in his life and surroundings to-day 
to create or explain it. It must be a trace of something 
that Olaf Tryggveson — that "magnificent, far -shining 
man" — scattered abroad in his kingdom eight hundred 
years ago, with his "bright, airy, wise way" of speaking 
and behaving to women and men. 

One of the buildings on this farm was known, the young 
man said, to be at least two hundred 3-ears old. The logs 
are moss-grown and black, but it is good for hundreds of 
years }~et. The first story is used now for a storeroom. 
From this a ladder led up to a half-chamber overhead, the 
front railed b}< a low railing ; here, in this strange sort of 
balcony bedroom, had slept the children of the family, all the 
time under observation of their elders below. 

Thrust in among the rafters, dark, rust}', bent, was an 
ancient sword. Our guide took it out and handed it to us, 
with a look of awe on his face. No one knew, he said, 
how long that sword had been on the farm. In the earliest 
writings by which the estate had been transferred, that 
sword had been mentioned, and it was a clause in every 
lease since that it should never betaken away from the place. 
However many times the farm might change hands, the 



266 NORWAY, DENMARK, AND GERMANY. 

sword must go with it, for all time. Was there no legend, 
no tradition, with it? None that his father or his father's 
father had ever heard ; only the mysterious entailed charge, 
from generation to generation, that the sword must never 
be removed. The blade was thin and the edge jagged, the 
handle plain and without ornament ; evidently the sword 
had been for work, and not for show. There was some- 
thing infinitely solemn in its inalienable estate of safe and 
reverent keeping at the hands of m(m all ignorant of its 
histoiy. It is by no means impossible that it had jour- 
neyed in the company of that Sigurd who sailed with his 
splendid fleet of sixty ships for Palestine, early in the 
twelfth century. Sigurd Jorsalafarer, or Traveller to Je- 
rusalem, he was called ; and no less an authority than 
Thomas Carlyle vouches for him as having been "a wise, 
able, and prudent man," reigning in a "solid and success- 
ful wa} T ." Through the Straits of Gibraltar to Jerusalem, 
home by way of Constantinople and Russia, " shining with 
renown," he sailed, and took a hand in any fighting he 
found going on by the way. Many of his men came from 
the region of the Sogne Fjord ; and the more I thought of 
it the surer I felt that this old sword had many a time 
flashed on the deck of his ships. 

Our second da}* opened rainy. The lake was blotted 
out by mist ; on the fence under the willows sat half a 
dozen men, roosting as unconcernedly as if it were warm 
sunshine. 

•' It does wonder me," said Sanna, " that I find here so 
many men standing idle. When the railroad come, it shall 
be that the life must be different." 

A heroic English party, undeterred by weather, were 
setting off in carioles and on horseback. Delays after 
delays occurred to hinder them. At the last moment their 
angry courier was obliged to go and fetch the washing, 
which had not arrived. There is a proverb in Norway, 
"When the Norwegian sa} T s ' immediately,' look for him 
in half an hour." 

Finally, at noon, in despair of sunshine, we also set off: 
rugs, water-proofs ; the india-rubber boot of the carriage 
drawn tight up to the level of our eyes ; we set off in pour- 
ing sheets of rain for Gudvangen. For the first two hours 
the sole variation of the monotony of our journey was in 



FOUR DAYS WITH SANNA. 267 

emptying the boot of water once every five minutes, just in 
time to save a freshet in our laps. High mountain peaks, 
black with forests or icy white with snow, gleamed in and 
out of the clouds on either hand, as we toiled and splashed 
along. Occasional lightings up revealed stretches of bar- 
ren country, here and there a cluster of farm-houses or a 
lowly church. On the shores of a small lake we passed 
one of these lonely churches. Only two other buildings 
were in sight in the vast expanse : one, the wretched little 
inn where we were to rest our horses for half an hour ; the 
other, the parsonage. This last was a pretty little cottage, 
picturesquely built of yellow pine, half bovvered in vines, 
looking in that lonely waste as if it had lost itself and 
stra} T ed awa} 7 from some civilized spot. The pastor and 
his sister, who kept house for him, were away ; but his 
servant was so sure that they would like to have us see their 
home that we allowed her to show it to us. It was a 
tasteful and cosej^ little home : parlor, stiKty, and dining- 
room, all prettily carpeted and furnished; books, flowers, 
a sewing-machine, and a piano. It did one's heart good 
to see such an oasis of a home in the wilderness. Drawn 
up on rests in a shed near the house, was an open boat, 
much like a wherry. The pastor spent hours every day, the 
maid said, in rowing on the lake. It was his great pleasure. 
Up, up we climbed : past fir forests, swamps, foaming 
streams, — the wildest, weirdest road storm-driven people 
ever crossed. Spite of the rain, half-naked children came 
flying out of hovels and cabins to open gates : sometimes 
there would be six in a row, their thin brown hands ail 
stretched for alms, and their hollow eyes begging piteously ; 
then they would race on ahead to open the next gate. The 
moors seemed but a succession of enclosed pasture-lands. 
Now and then we passed a little knot of cabins close to 
the road, and men who looked kindly, but as wild as wild 
beasts, would come out and speak to the driver ; their 
poverty was direful to see. At last, at the top of a high 
hill, we halted ; the storm stayed ; the clouds lifted and 
blew off. At our feet lay a black chasm ; it was like 
looking down into the bowels of the earth. This was the 
Nerodal Valley ; into it we were to descend. Its walls 
were three and four thousand feet high. It looked little 
more than a cleft. The road down this precipitous wall 



268 NORWAY, DENMARK, AND GERMANY. 

is a marvel of engineering. It is called the Stalheimscleft, 
and was built by a Norwegian officer, Captain Finne. It 
is made in a series of zigzagging loops, which are so long 
and so narrow that the descent at no point appears steep ; 
yet as one looks up from airy loop to the loop next above, 
it seems directly over his head. Down this precipice into 
the Nerodal Valley leap two grand fosses, the Stalheimfos 
and the Salvklevfos ; roaring in ceaseless thunder, filling 
the air, and drenching the valley with spray. Tiny grass- 
grown spaces between the bowlders and the loops of the 
road had all been close mowed ; spaces which looked too 
small for the smallest reaping-hook to swing in were yet 
close shorn, and the little handfuls of lmy hung up drying 
on hand's-breadths of fence set up for the purpose. Even 
single blades of grass are too precious in Norway to be 
wasted. 

As we walked slowly down this incredible road, we 
paused step by step to look first up, then down. The 
carriage waiting for us below on the bridge looked like a 
babj- wagon. The river made by the meeting of these two 
great cataracts at the base of the precipice was only a 
little silver thread flowing down the valley. The cataracts 
seemed leaping from the sky, and the sky seemed resting 
on the hill-tops ; masses of whirling and floating clouds 
added to the awesome grandeur of the scene. The Stal- 
heimfos fell into a deep, basin-shaped ravine, piled with 
great bowlders, and full of birch and ash shrubs ; in the 
centre of this, by some strange pla} T of the water, rose a 
distinct and beautifully shaped cone, thrown up closely in 
front of the fall, almost blending with it, and thick veiled 
in the tumultuous spra} T , — a fountain in a waterfall. It 
seemed the accident of a moment, but its shape did not 
alter so long as we watched it ; it is a part of the fall. 

Five miles down this cleft, called valley, to Gudvangen 
run the road and the little river and the narrow strips of 
meadow, dark, thin, and ghastly ; long months in utter 
darkness this Nerodal lies, and never, even at summer's 
best and longest, has it more than a half-day of sun. The 
mountains rise in sheer black walls on either hand, — bare 
rock in colossal shafts and peaks, three, four, and even five 
thousand feet high ; snow in the rifts at top ; patches of 
gaunt firs here and there ; great spaces of tumbled rocks, 



FOUR DAYS WITH SANNA. 269 

where avalanches have slid ; pebbly and sand} 7 channels 
worn from side to side of the valley, where torrents have 
rushed down and torn a way across ; white streams from 
top to bottom of the precipices, all foam and quiver, like 
threads spun out on the sward, more than can he counted ; 
the}' seem to swing down out of the sky as spider threads 
swing swift and countless in a dewy morning. 

Sanna shuddered. u Now you see, one could not spend 
a whole day in Nerodal Valley," she said. " It does won- 
der me that any people will live here. Every spring the 
mountains do fall and people are killed." 

On a narrow rim of land at base of these walls, just 
where the fjord meets the river, is the village of Gud- 
vangen, a desolate huddle of half a dozen poor houses. 
A chill as of death filled the air ; foul odors arose at every 
turn. The two little inns were overcrowded with people, 
who roamed restlessly up and down, waiting for they knew 
not what. An indescribable gloom settles on Gudvangen 
with nightfall. The black waters of the fjord chafing 
monotonously at the base of the black mountains ; the sky 
black also, and looking farther off than sky ever looked 
before, walled into a strip, like the valley beneath it ; 
hemmed in, forsaken, doomed, and left seems Gudvangen. 
What hold life can have on a human being kept in such a 
spot it is hard to imagine. Yet we found three very old 
women hobnobbing contentedly there in a cave of a hut. 
Ragged, dirt} 7 , hideous, hopeless one would have thought 
them ; but they were all agog and cheery, and full of plans 
for repairing their house. The} 7 were in a little log stable, 
perhaps ten feet square, and hardly high enough to stand 
upright in : they were cowering round a bit of fire in the 
centre ; their piles of straw and blankets laid in corners ; 
not a chair, not a table. Macbeth's witches had seemed 
full -dressed society women by the side of these. We 
peered timidly in at the group, and they all came running 
towards us, chattering, glad to see strangers, and apolo- 
gizing for their condition, because, as they said, they had 
just turned in there together for a few days, while their 
house across the way was being mended. Not a light of 
any description had they, except the fire. The oldest one 
hobbled away, and returned with a small tallow candle, 
which she lit and held in her hand, to show us how 



270 NORWAY, DENMARK, AND GERMANY. 

comfortable they were, after all ; plenty of room for three 
piles of straw on the rough log floor. Their ''house across 
the way " was a little better than this ; not much. One 
of the poor old crones had "five children in America." 
" The} r wanted her to come out to America and live with 
them, but she was too old to go away from home," she 
said. " Home was the best place for old people," to which 
the other two assented eagerly. "Oh, yes, home was the 
best place. America was too far." 

It seemed a miracle to have comfort in an inn in so 
poverty-stricken a spot as this, but we did. We slept in 
straw-filled bunks, set tight into closets under the eaves ; 
only a narrow doorway by which to get in and out of bed ; 
but there were two windows in the room, and no need to 
stifle. And for supper there was set before us a stew of 
lamb, delicately flavored with curry, and served with rice, 
of which no house need be ashamed. That so palatable 
a dish could have issued from the place which answered 
for kitchen in that poor little inn was a marvel ; it was 
little more than a small dark tomb. The dishes were all 
washed out-of-doors in tubs set on planks laid across two 
broken chairs at the kitchen door ; and the food and milk 
were kept in an above-ground cellar not three steps from 
the same door. This had been made by an immense slab 
of rock which had crashed down from the mountain top, 
one day, and instead of tearing through the house and 
killing everybody had considerately lodged on top of 
two other bowlders, roofing the space in, and forming a 
huge stone refrigerator ready to hand for the innkeeper. 
The enclosed space was cold as ice, and high enough 
and large enough for one to walk about in it comfortably. 
I had the curiosity to ask this innkeeper how much he 
could make in a 3-ear off his inn. When he found that I 
had no sinister motive in the inquiry, he was freely com- 
municative. At first he feared, Sanna said, that it might 
become known in the town how much mone}* he was mak- 
ing, and that demands might be made on him in conse- 
quence. If the season of summer travel were very good, 
he said he would clear two hundred dollars ; but he did 
not alwaj^s make so much as that. He earned a little also 
bj T keeping a small shop, and in the winter that was his 
only resource. He had a wife and two children, and his 



FOUR DAYS WITH SANNA. 271 

wife was not strong, which made it harder for them, as 
they were obliged always to keep a servant. 

Even in full sunlight, at nine of the morning, Gudvangen 
looked grim and dangerous, and the Nero Fjord water 
black. As we sailed out, the walls of the valley closed 
up suddenly behind us, as with a snap which might have 
craunched poor little Gudvangen to death. The fjord is 
as wild as the pass ; in fact, the same thing, only that it 
has water at bottom instead of land, and you can sail 
closer than you can drive at base of the rock}' walls. Soon 
we came to the mouth of another great fjord, opening up 
another watery road into the mountains ; this was the 
Aurland, and on its farther shore opened again the Sog- 
nedal Fjord, up which we went a little way to leave some- 
body at a landing. Here were green hills and slopes and 
trees, and a bright yellow church, shaped like a blanc- 
mange mould in three pyramid-shaped cones, each smaller 
than the one below. 

"Here is the finest fruit orchard in all Scandinavia," 
said Sanna, pointing to a pretty place just out of the town, 
where fields rose one above the other in terraces on south- 
facing slopes, covered thick with orchards. " It belongs 
to an acquainted with me : but she must sell it. She is a 
widow, and she cannot take the care to herself." 

Back again across the mouth of the Aurland Fjord, and 
then out into the great Sogne Fjord, zigzagging from side 
to side of it, and up into numerous little fjords where the 
boat looked to be steering straight into hills, — we seemed 
to be adrift, without purpose, rather than on a definite 
voyage with a fixed aim of getting home. The magnifi- 
cent labyrinths of walled waters were calm as the heavens 
the}- reflected ; the clouds above and clouds below kept 
silent pace with each other, and we seemed gliding between 
two skies. Great snow fjelcls came in sight, wheeled, rose, 
sank, and disappeared, as we passed ; sometimes green 
meadows stretched on either side of us, then terrible gorges 
and pinnacles of towering rock. Picture after picture we 
saw, of gay-colored little villages, with rims of fields and 
rocky promontories ; snow f jelds above, and fir forests 
between ; glittering waterfalls shooting from the sky line 
to the water, like white lightning clown a black stone front, 
or leaping out in spaces of feathery snow, like one preter- 



272 NORWAY, DENMARK, AND GERMANY. 

natural blooming of the forests all the way clown the black 
walls rising perpendicularly thousands of feet ; tiers of 
blue mountains in the distance, dark blue on the nearest, 
and shading off to palest blue at the sky line ; the fjord 
dark purple in the narrows, shading to gray in the opens ; 
illuminated spaces of green, now at the shore, now half- 
way up, now two-thirds-way up to the sky ; tops of hills 
in sunlight ; bars of sunlight streaming through dark clefts. 
Then a storm-sweep across the fjord, far in our wake, — 
swooping and sweeping, and gone in a half-hour ; blotting 
out the mountains ; then turning them into a dark-slate 
wall, on which white sails and cross-sunbeams made a 
superb shining. And so, between the sun and the storm, 
we came to Valestrand, and sent off and took on boat- 
loads of pleasuring people, — the boats with bright flags at 
prow and stern, and gay-dressed women with fantastic 
parasols like butterflies poised on their edges, — Valestrand, 
where, as some say, Frithiof was born ; and as all say, he 
burnt one of Balder's great temples. Then Ladvik, on a 
green slope turning to gold in the sun ; its white church 
with a gray stone spire relieved against a bank of purple 
gloom ; the lights sinking lower and the shadows stretch- 
ing farther every minute ; shadows of hills behind which 
the sun had already gone, thrown sharp and black on 
hills still glowing in full light ; hills before us, shimmer- 
ing in soft silver gray and pale purple against a clear 
golden west ; hills behind us, folding and folded in 
masses of rosy vapor ; shining fosses leaping clown among 
them ; the colors changing like the colors of a prism 
minute by minute along the tops of the ranges, — this 
was the way our day on the Sogne Fjord drew near its 
ending. Industriously knitting, with eyes firm fastened on 
her needles, sat an English matron near us on the deck. 
Not one glance of her eye did she give to the splendors of 
sky and water and land about her. 

"I do think that lad}* must be in want of stockings very 
much," remarked Sauna quietly ; "but she need not to come 
to Norway to knit." 

Far worse, however, than the woman who knitted were 
the women and the men who talked, loudly, stupidly, vul- 
garly, around us. It was mortifying that their talk was 
English, but the}' were not Americans. At last they drove 



FOUR DAYS WITH SANNA. 273 

us to another part of the deck, but not before a few phrases 
of their conversation had been indelibly stamped on m}- 
meinor} r . 

u Well, we were in Dresden two da}~s : there 's only the 
gallery there ; that 's time enough for that." 

" Raphaels, — lots -of Raphaels." 

" I don't care for Raphaels, anyhow. I '11 tell you who 
I like ; I like Veronese." 

" Well, I 'm very fond of Tintoretto." 

" I like Titians ; they 're so delicate, don't you know ? " 

"Well, who's that man that's painted such dreadful 
things, — all mixed up, don't 3*011 know ? In some places 
you see a good many of them." 

l< You don't mean Rembrandt, do you? There are a lot 
of Rembrandts in Munich." 

" There was one picture I liked. I think it was a Christ ; 
but I ain't sure. There were four children on the ground, 
I remember." 

When the real sunset came we were threading the rock} 7 
labyrinths of the Bergen Fjord. It is a field of bowlders, 
with an ocean let iu ; nothing more. Why the bowlders 
are not submerged, since the water is deep enough for big 
ships to sail on, is the perpetual marvel ; but the}* are not. 
They are as firm in their places as continents, myriads of 
them only a few feet out of water ; and when the sun as it 
sinks sends a flood of gold and red light athwart them, 
the} 7 turn all colors, and glow on the water like great 
smoke crystals with fire shining through. To sail up this 
fjord in the sunset is to wind through devious lanes walled 
with these jewels, and to look off, over and above them,, 
to fields of purple and gray and green, islands on islands 
on islands, to the right and to the left, with the same jewel- 
walled lanes running east and west and north and south 
among them ; the sky will stream with glowing colors from 
horizon to horizon, and the glorious silence will be broken 
by no harsher sound than the low lapsing of waters and 
the soft whirr of gray gulls' wings. 

And so we came to Bergen in the bright midnight of the 
last of our four da}~s. 

Months afterwards Sanna sent me a few extracts from 
descriptions given by a Norwegian writer of some of the 
spots we had seen in the dim upper distances along the 

18 



274 NORWAY, DENMARK, AND GERMANY. 

fjords, — some of those illuminated spaces of green high 
up among the crags, which looked such sunny and peaceful 
homes. 

Her English is so much more graphic than mine that I 
have begged her permission to give the extracts as she 
wrote them : — 

"Grand, glorious, and serious is the Sogne Fjord. Serious 
in itself, and still more serious we find it when we know where 
and how people do live there between mountains. And we 
must wonder or ask, Is there really none places left, or no kind 
of work for those people to get for the maintenance of the life, 
but to go to such desolate and rather impassable a place? . . . 

" More than half of the year are the two families who live on 
the farm of Vetti separated from all other human beings. During 
the winter can the usual path in the grass not be passed in case 
of snow, ice, and perpetual slips, which leave behind trace long 
out in the summer, because the sun only for a short time came 
over this long enormous abyss, and does not linger there long, 
so that the snow which has been to ice do melt very slow, and 
seldom disappear earlier than in July. The short time in the 
winter when the river Utla is frozen may the bottom of the pass 
well be passed, though not without danger, on account of the 
mentioned slips, which, with the power of the hurricane, are 
whizzing down in the deep, and which merely pressure of the 
air is so strong that it throw all down. 

" Late in the autumn and in the spring is all approach to and 
from Vetti quite stopped; and late in the autumn chiefly with 
ground and snow slips, which then get loosened by the frequent 
rain. The farm-houses is situate on a steep slope, so that 
the one end of the lowest beam is put on the mere ground, 
and the other end must be put on a wall almost three yards 
high. The fields are so steep, and so quite near the dreadful 
precipice, that none unaccustomed to it do venture one's self 
thither ; and when one from here look over the pass, and look 
the meadows which is more hanging than laying over the deep, 
and which have its grass mowed down with a short scythe, then 
one cannot comprehend the desperate courage which risk to set 
about and occupy one's self here, while the abyss has opened 
its swallow for receiving the foolhardy. 

" A little above the dwelling-houses is a quite tolerable plain; 
and when one ask the man why he has not built his houses there, 
he answers that owing to the snow-slips it is impossible to build 
there. 

" Through the valley-streams the Afdals River comes from 
the mountains, run in a distance of only twenty yards from the 
farm-houses, and about one hundred yards from the same pour 



FOUR DAYS WITH SANNA. 275 

out itself with crash of thunder in a mighty foss. The rumble 
of the same, and that with its hurling out caused pressure of 
the air, is in the summer so strong that the dwelling-houses 
seems to shiver, and all what fluids there in open vessels get 
placed on the table is on an incessant trembling, moving almost 
as on board a ship in a rough sea. The wall and windows 
which turns to the river are then always moistened of the 
whipped foam, which in small particles continually is thrown 
back from the foss. 

"By the side of this foss, in the hard granite wall which it 
moisten, is a mined gut (the author says he can't call it a road, 
though it is reckoned for that), broad enough that one man, 
and in the highest one small well-trained horse, however not by 
each other's "side, can walk therein. This gut, which vault is 
not so high that an full-grown man can walk upright, is the 
farm's only road which rise to a considerable height. 

" But as this gut could not get lightened in a suitable height, 
one has filled up or finished the remaining gap with four timber 
beams, four or five yards long, which is close to the gut, and 
with its upper end leans on a higher small mountain peak, which 
beside this is the fastening for the bridge over the waterfall. 
In these beams is cut in flukes, just as the steps of a staircase, 
and when one walks up these flukes one looks between the beams 
the frothing foss beneath one's self, while one get wrapped up 
of its exhalation clouds. 

"The man told me that the pass also is to be passed with 
horse, the time of the summer, and that all then is to be carried in 
a pack-saddle to the farm, of his own horse, which is accustomed 
to this trip. And when one know the small Lserdalske horses' 
easiness, and the extraordinary security wherewith they can go 
upon the most narrow path on the edge of the most dreadful 
precipices, in that they place or cast the feet so in front of each 
other that no path is too narrow for them, then it seems a little 
less surprising. 

" From the Vetti farm continues the pass in a distance of 
about twenty-one English miles, so that the whole pass, then, is 
a little more than twenty-four miles, and shall on the other side 
of the farm be still more narrow, more difficult, and more dread- 
ful. The farmer himself and his people must often go there to 
the woods, and for other things for his farm. There belongs to 
this farm most excellent sceter and mountain fields, wherefoie 
the cattle begetting is here of great importance ; and also the 
most excellent tract of firs belong to this farm. 

" I was curious to know how one had to behave from here to 
get the dead buried, when it was impossible that two men could 
walk by the side of each other through the pass, aud I did even 
not see how one could carry any coffin on horseback. I got the 
following information : The corpse is to be laid on a thin board, 



276 NORWAY, DENMARK, AND GERMANY. 

in which there is bored holes in both ends in which there is to 
be put handles of rope ; to this board is the corpse to be tied, 
wrapped up in its linen cloth. And now one man in the front 
and one behind carry it through the pass to the farm Gjelde, 
and here it is to be laid into the coffin, and in the common 
manner brought to the churchyard. If any one die in the win- 
ter, and the bottom of the pass must be impassable then as well 
as in the spring and in the autumn, one must try to keep the 
corpse in an hard frozen state, which is not difficult, till it can 
be brought down in the above-mentioned manner. 

"A still more strange and sad manner was used once at a 
cottager place called Vermelien. This place is lying in the little 
valley which border to the Vetti's field. Its situation by the 
river deep down in the pass is exceedingly horrid, and it has 
none other road or path than a very steep and narrow foot-path 
along the mountain wall side with the most dreadful precipice 
as by the Vetti. 

" Since the cottager people here generally had changed, no 
one had dead there. It happened, then, the first time a boy, on 
seventeen years old, died. One did not do one's self any hesi- 
tation about the manner to bring him to his grave, and they 
made a coffin in the house. The corpse was put in the coffin, 
and then the coffin brought outside ; and first now one did see 
with consternation that it was not possible to carry the corpse 
with them in this manner. What was to do then ? 

" At last they resolved to let the coffin be left as a memento 
mori, and to place the dead upon a horse, his feet tied up under 
the belly of the horse ; against the mane on the horse was fas- 
tened a well-stuffed fodder bag, that the corpse may lean to the 
same, to which again the corpse was tied. And so the dead 
must ride over the mountain to his resting-place by Fortun's 
church in Lyster." 



THE KATRINA SAGA. 
I. 

"Forr English Ladies." This was the address on the 
back of a much-thumbed envelope, resting on top of the 
key-rack in the dining-room of our Bergen hotel. If 
"For" had been spelled correctly, the letter would not 
have been half so likely to be read ; but that extra out- 
sider of an r was irresistibly attractive. The words of 
the letter itself were, if not equally original in spelling, at 
least as unique in arrangement, and altogether the adver- 
tisement answered its purposes far better than if it had 
been written in good English. The naivete with which 
the writer went on to say, "I do recommend me," 
was delicious ; and when she herself appeared there was 
something in her whole personal bearing entirety in keep- 
ing with the childlike and unconscious complacency of her 
phraseology. "I do recommend me" was written all 
over her face ; and, as things turned out, if it had been 
"I do guarantee me," it had not been too strong an in- 
dorsement. A more tireless, willing, thoughtful, helpful, 
eager, shrewd little creature than Katrina never chat- 
tered. Looking back from the last da}' to the first of my 
acquaintance with her, I feel a remorseful twinge as I 
think how near I came to taking instead of her, as my 
maid for a month's journeying, a stately young woman, 
who, appearing in answer to my advertisement, handed 
me her card with dignity, and begged my pardon for in- 
quiring precisely what it would be that she would have to 
do for me, besides the turning of English into Norwegian 
and vice versa. The contrast between this specific gravity 
and Katrina's heart}' and unreflecting ' ' I will do my best 
to satisfy you in all occasions," did not sufficiently impress 
me in the outset. But many a time afterward did I recall 



278 NORWAY, DENMARK, AND GERMANY. 

it, and believe more than ever in the doctrine of lucky 
stars and good angels. 

When Katrina appeared, punctually to the appointed 
minute, half an hour before the time for setting off, I saw 
with pleasure that she was wrapped in a warm cloak of 
dark cloth. I had seen her before, flitting about in shawls 
of various sorts, loosely pinned at the throat in a dis- 
jointed kind of way, which gave to her appearance an 
expression that I did not like, — an expression of desul- 
tory if not intermittent respectability. But wrapped in 
this heavy cloak, she was decorum personified. 

"Ah, Katrina," I said, "lam very glad to see you are 
warmly dressed. This summer you keep in Norwa} T is so 
cold, one needs winter clothes all the time." 

" Yes, I must," she replied. " I get fever and ague in 
New York, and since then it always reminds me. That 
was six years ago ; but it reminds me, — the freezing at 
nry neck," putting her hand to the back of her neck. 

It was in New York, then, that she had learned so much 
English. This explained everything, — the curious mix- 
ture of volubility and inaccuracy and slang in her speech. 
She had been for several months a house-servant in New 
York, "with an Irish lady; such a nice lady. Her hus- 
band, he took care of a bank : kept it clean, don't you 
see, and all such tings. And we lived in the top in the 
eight story : we was always going up and down in the 
elewator." 

After this she had been a button-hole maker in a great 
clothing-house, and next, had married one of her own 
countrymen ; a nephew, by the wa}>", of the famous Norwe- 
gian giant at Barnum's Museum, — a fact which Katrina 
stated simply, without any apparent boast, adding, "My 
husband's father were guyant, too. There be many guyants 
in that part of the country." 

Perhaps it was wicked, seeing that Katrina had had such 
hopes of learning much English in her month with me, not 
to have told her then and there that g in the English word 
giant was alwa}~s soft. But I could not. Neither did I 
once, from first to last, correct her inimitable and delicious 
pronunciations. I confined my instructions to the en- 
deavor to make her understand clearly the meanings of 
words, and to teach her true synonymes ; but as for med- 



THE KATRINA SAGA. 279 

dling with her pronunciations, I would as soon have been 
caught trying to teach a baby to speak plain. I fear, 
towards the last, she began to suspect this, and to be 
half aware of the not wholly disinterested pleasure which 
I took in listening to her eager prattle ; but she did not 
accuse me, and I let her set off for home not one whit 
wiser in the matter of the sounds of the English language 
than she had been when she came away, except so far as 
she might have unconsciously caught them from hearing 
me speak. It is just as well : her English is quite good 
enough as it is, for all practical purposes in Norway, and 
would lose half its charm and value to English-speaking 
people if she were to learn to say the words as we say them. 
To set off by boat from Bergen means to set off b} r 
boats ; it would not be an idle addition to the phrase, 
either, to say, not only by boats, but among boats, in, 
out, over, and across boats ; and one ma}' consider himself 
lucky if he is not called upon to add, — the whole truth 
being told, — under boats. Arriving at the wharf, he is 
shown where his steamer lies, midway in the harbor ; 
whether it be at anchor, or hoisted on a raft of small 
boats, he is at first at a loss to see. However, rowing 
alongside, he discovers that the raft of small boats is only 
a crowd, like any other crowd, of movable things or crea- 
tures, and can be shoved, jostled, pushed out of the wa} T , 
and compelled to give room. A Norwegian can elbow his 
boat through a tight-packed mass of boats with as dexter- 
ous and irresistible force as another man can elbow his 
wa}^ on foot, on dry land, in a crowd of men. So long as 
you are sitting quiet in the middle of the boat, merely 
swayed from side to side by his gyrations, with no 
sort of responsibility as to their successive direction, and 
with implicit faith in their being right, it is all very well. 
But when your Norwegian springs up, confident, poises 
one foot on the edge of his own boat, the other foot on 
the edge of another boat, plants one of his oars against 
the gunwale of a third boat, and rests the other oar hard 
up against the high side of a steamboat, and then authorita- 
tively requests you to rise and make pathway for j'ourself 
across and between all these oars and boats, and leap 
varying chasms of water between them and the ladder up 
the steamer's side, dismay seizes you, if you are not to the 



280 NORWAY, DENMARK, AND GERMANY. 

water born. I did not hear of anybody's being drowned 
in attempting to get on board a Bergen steamer. But 
wiry somebody is not, every day in the week, I do not 
know, if it often happens to people to thread and sur- 
mount such a labyrinth of small rocking boats as lay 
around the dampskib "Jupiter," in which Katrina and I 
sailed for Christiania. 

The Northern nations of Europe seem to have hit upon 
signally appropriate names for that place of torment which 
in English is called steamboat. There are times when 
simply to pronounce the words dampskib or dampbaad is 
soothing to the nerves ; and nowhere oftener than in Nor- 
way can one be called upon to seek such relief. It is 
an accepted thing in Norwa} r that no steamboat can be 
counted on either to arrive or depart within one, two, or 
three hours of its advertised time. The guide-books all 
state this fact ; so nobody who, thus forewarned, has 
chosen to trust himself to the dampskib has any right to 
complain if the whole plan of his journey is disarranged 
and frustrated by the thing's not arriving within four hours 
of the time it had promised. But it is not set down in the 
guide-books, as it ought to be, that there is something else 
on which the traveller in Norwegian dampskibs can place 
no dependence whatever ; and that is the engaging before- 
hand of his stateroom. To have engaged a stateroom 
one week beforehand, positively, explicitly, and then, upon 
arriving on board, to be confronted by a smiling captain, 
who states in an off-hand manner, as if it were an every- 
day occurrence, that " he is very sorry, but it is impossible 
to let you have it ; " and who, when he is pressed for an 
explanation of the impossibilit} T , has no better reason to 
give than that two gentlemen wanted the stateroom, and as 
the two gentlemen could not go in the ladies' cabin, and 
you, owing to the misfortune of your sex, could, therefore 
the two gentlemen have the stateroom, and you will take 
the one remaining untenanted berth in the cabin, — this is 
what may happen in a Norwegian dampskib. If one is 
resolute enough to halt in the gangway, and, ordering the 
porters bearing the luggage to halt also, say calmly, 
" Very well ; then I must return to my hotel, and wait for 
another boat, in which I can have a stateroom ; it would 
be quite out of the question, my making the journey in the 



THE KATRINA SAGA. 281 

cabin," the captain will discover some way of disposing of 
the two gentlemen, and without putting them into the 
ladies' cabin ; but this late concession, not to the justice 
of your claim, only to your determination in enforcing it, 
does not in anj' wise conciliate your respect or your 
amiability. The fact of the imposition and unfairness is 
the same. I ought to say, however, that this is the only 
matter in which I found unfairness in Norway. In regard 
to everything else the Norwegian has to provide or to 
sell, he is just and honest ; but when it comes to the 
question of dampskib accommodations, he seems to take 
leave of all his sense of obligation to be either. 

As I crept into the narrow trough called a berth, in my 
hardly won stateroom, a vision flitted past the door: a 
tall and graceful figure, in a tight, shabby black gown ; a 
classic head, set with the grace of a lily on a slender neck ; 
pale brown hair, put back, braided, and wound in a knot 
behind, all save a few short curls, which fell lightly floating 
and waving over a low forehead ; a pair of honest, merry 
gray eyes, with a swift twinkle at the corners, and a 
sudden serious tenderness in their depths ; a straight nose, 
with a nostril spirited and fine as an Arabian's ; a mouth 
of flawless beauty, unless it might be that the upper lip 
was a trifle too short, but this fault only added to the 
piquancy of the face. I lifted myself on my elbow to look 
at her. She was gone ; and I sank back, thinking of the 
pictures that the world raved over, so few short years ago, 
of the lovely Eugenie. Here was a face strangely like hers, 
but with far more fire and character, — a Norwegian girl, 
evidently poor. I was wondering if I should see her again, 
and how I could manage to set Katrina on her track, and 
if I could find out who she was, when, lo, there she stood 
by my side, bending above me, and saying something Nor- 
wegian over and over in a gentle voice; and Katrina 
behind her, saving, " This is the lady what has care of all. 
She do saj-, ' Poor lady, poor laclv, to be so sick ! ' She is 
sony that you are sick." I gazed at her in stupefied 
wonder. This radiant creature the stewardess of a steam- 
boat ! She was more beautiful near than at a distance. 
I am sure I have never seen so beautiful a woman. And 
coming nearer, one could see clearly, almost as radiant as 
her physical beauty, the beauty of a fine and sweet nature 



282 NORWAY, DENMARK, AND GERMANY. 

shining through. Her smile was transcendent. I am not 
over-easj* to be stirred b} T women's fair looks. Seldom I 
see a woman's face that gives me unalloyed pleasure. 
Faces are half- terrifying things to one who studies them, 
such paradoxical masks are the}' ; onl}* one half mask, 
and the other half bared secrets of a lifetime. Their 
mere physical beauty, however great it ma} T be, is so 
underlaid and overlaid by tokens and traces and scars of 
things in which the flesh and blood of it have played part 
that a fair face can rarely be more than half fair. But 
here was a face with beauty such as the old Greeks put 
into marble ; and shining through it the honest}* and inno- 
cence of an untaught child, the good- will and content of a 
faithful working-girl, and the native archness of a healthful 
maiden. I am not unaware that all this must have the 
sound of an invention, and there being no man to bear 
witness to m}* tale, except such as have sailed in the Nor- 
wegian dampskib " Jupiter," it will not be much believed ; 
nevertheless, I shall tell it. Not being the sort of artist to 
bring the girl's face awa} T in a portfolio, the only thing left 
for me is to try to set it in the poor portraiture of words. 
Poor enough portraiture it is that words can fashion, even 
for things less subtle than faces, — a day or a sky, a swift 
passion or a thought. Words seem always to those who 
work with them more or less failures ; but most of all are 
the}' impotent and disappointing when a face is to be told. 
Yet I shall not cast away my sketch of the beautiful Anna. 
It is the only one which will ever be made of her. Now 
that I think of it, however, there is one testimoiry to be 
added to mine, — a testimony of much weight, too, taken 
in the connection, for it was of such in voluntariness. 

On the second da} r of my voyage in the " Jupiter," in 
the course of a conversation with the captain, I took oc- 
casion to speak of the good-will and efficienc} 7 of his stew- 
ardess. He assented warmly to nry praise of her ; adding 
that she was born of very poor parents, and had little edu- 
cation herself beyond knowing how to read and write, but 
was a person of rare goodness. 

I then said, "And of very rare beauty, also. I have 
never seen a more beautiful face." 

" Yes," he replied ; -- there is something very not com- 
mon about her. Her face is quite antic." "Antique," he 



TEE KATRINA SAGA. 283 

meant, but for the first few seconds I could not imagine 
what it was he had intended. He also, then, had recog- 
nized, as this phrase shows, the, truly classic qualit}- of 
the girl's beauty ; and he is the only witness I am able to 
bring to prove that 1113' description of her face and figure 
and look and bearing are not an ingenious fable wrought 
out of nothing. 

From Katrina, also, there came testimonies to Anna's 
rare quality. 

" I have been in long speech with Anna," she said be- 
fore we had been at sea a clay. " I tink she will come to 
Bergen, by my husband and me. She can be trusted ; I 
can tell in one firstest minute vat peoples is to be trusted. 
She is so polite always, but she passes ghentlemens with- 
out speaking, except she has business. I can tell." 

Shrewd Katrina ! Her husband has a sort of restaurant 
and billiard-room in Bergen, — a place not over-creditable, 
1 fear, although keeping within the pale of respectability. 
It is a sore trial to Katrina, his doing this, especially 
the selling of liquor. She had several times refused her 
consent to his going into the business, " but dis time," she 
said, " he had it before I knowed any ting, don't you see? 
He didn't tell me. I always tink dere is de wifes and 
children, and maybe de mens don't take home no bread; 
and den to sit dere and drink, it is shame, don't you see? 
But if he don't do, some other mans would ; so tere it is, 
don't you see? And tere is money in it, you see." Poor 
Katrina had tried in vain to shelter herself and appease 
her conscience by this old sophistry. Her pride and self- 
respect still so revolted at the trade that she would not go 
to the place to stay. "He not get me to go tere. He 
not want me, either. I would not work in such a place." 

But she had no scruples about endeavoring to engage 
Anna as a waiter- girl for the place. 

" She will be by my husband and me," she said, " and 
it is always shut every night at ten o'clock ; and my hus- 
band is very strict man. He will have all right. She can 
have all her times after dat ; and here she have onl}' four 
dollars a mont, and nry husband gives more tan dat. And 
I shall teach to her English ; I gives her one hour every 
da} 7 . Dat is great for her, for she vill go to America next 
year. If she can English speak, she get twice the money 



284 NORWAY, DENMARK, AND GERMANY. 

in America. Oh, ven I go to America, I did not know de 
name of one ting ; and every night I cry and cry ; I tink 
I never learn ; but dat Irish lad}' I live by, she vas so kind 
to me as my own mother. Oh, I like Irish peoples ; the 
Irish and the Americans, de} T are what I like best. I 
don't like de English ; and Chermans, I don't like dem ; dey 
vill take all out of 3'our pocket. She is intended ; * and 
dat is good. When one are intended one must be careful ; 
and if he is one you love, ten you don't vant to do any- 
ting else ; and her sweetheart is a nice 3'oung fellow. He 
is in the engyne in a Hamburg boat. She has been 
speaking by me about him." 

The dampskib ' ' Jupiter " is a roller. It is a marvel how 
an} r thing not a log can roll at such a rate. The stateroom 
berths being built across instead of lengthwise, the result 
is a perpetual tossing of heads versus feet. As Katrina 
expressivery put it, k * It is first te head, and den te feets 
up. Dat is te worstest. Dat makes te difference." 

Ill, helpless, almost as tight-wedged in as a knife-blade 
shut in its handle, I lay in my trough a da}- and a night. 
The swinging port-hole, through which I feebly looked, 
made a series of ever-changing vignettes of the bits of 
water, sk}', land it showed : moss-crowned hillocks of 
stone ; now and then a red roof, or a sloop scudding by. 
The shore of Norway is a kaleidoscope of land, rock, and 
water broken up. To call it shore at all seems half a mis- 
nomer. I have never heard of a census of the islands on 
the Norway coast, but it would be a matter of great inter- 
est to know if it needs the decimals of millions to reckon 
them. This would not be hard to be believed 03- one who 
has sailed two days and two nights in their labyrinths. 
They are a more distinctive feature in the beaut3' of Nor- 
way's seaward face than even her majestic mountain 
ranges. The3^ have as much and as changing beauty of 
color as those, and, added to the subtle and exhaustless 
beaut3' of changing color, the3 x have the still subtler charm 
of that mysterious combination of rest and restlessness, 
stillness and motion, solidity and evanescence, which is 
the dower of all islands, and most of all of the islands of 
outer seas. Even more than from the stern solemntty of 
their mountain-walled fjords must the Norwegians have 

1 Betrothed. 



THE KATEINA SAGA. 285 

drawn their ancient inspirations, I imagine, from the -woo- 
ing, baffling, hiring, forbidding, locking and unlocking, 
and never-revealing vistas, channels, gates, and barriers 
of their islands. They are round and soft and mossy as 
hillocks of sphagnum in a green marsh. You may sink 
above your ankles in the moist, delicious verdure, which 
looks from the sea like a mere mantle lightly flung over 
the rock. Or they are bare and gray and unbroken, as if 
coated in mail of stone ; and 3'ou might clutch in vain for 
so much as the help of a crevice or a shrub, if you were 
cast on their sides. Some lie level and low, with oases of 
vividest green in their hollows ; these lift and loom in the 
noon or the twilight, with a mirage which the desert can- 
not outdo. Some rise up in precipices of sudden wall, 
countless Gibraltars, which no mortal power can scale, 
and only wild creatures with tireless wings can approach. 
They are lashed by foaming waves, and the echoes peal 
like laughter among them ; the tide brings them all it has ; 
the morning sun lights them up, top after top, like beacons 
of its way out to sea, and leaves them again at night, lin- 
geringly, one b} T one ; changing them often into the sem- 
blance of jewels by the last red rays of its sinking light. 
They seem, as 3-011 sail swiftly among them, to be sailing 
too, a flotilla of glittering kingdoms ; your escort, your 
convo}' ; shifting to right, to left, in gorgeous parade of 
skilful display, as for a pageant. When you anchor, they 
too are of a sudden at rest; solid, substantial land again, 
wooing you to take possession. There are myriads of 
them still unknown, untrodden, and sure to remain so for- 
ever, no matter how long the world may last ; as sure as 
if the old spells were true, and the gods had made them 
invincible hy a charm, or lonely under an eternal curse. 
At the mouths of the great fjords they seem sometimes 
to have fallen back and into line, as if to do honor to 
whomever might come sailing in. They must have 
greatly helped the splendor of the processions of viking 
ships, a thousand years ago, in the days when a viking 
thought nothing of setting sail for the south or the east 
with six or seven hundred ships in his fleet. If their 
birch-trees were as plumy then as now, there was nothing 
finer than they in all that a viking adorned his ships with, 
not even the gilt dragons at the prow. 



286 NORWAY, DENMARK, AND GERMANY. 

Before the close of the second da}' of our voyage, the 
six passengers in the ladies' cabin had reached the end of 
their journey and left the boat. B\- way of atonement for 
his first scheming,to rob me of my stateroom, the captain 
now magnanimously offered to me the whole of the ladies' 
cabin, for which he had no further use. How gladly I 
accepted it! How gleefully I watched my broad bed 
being made on a sofa, lengthwise the rolling "Jupiter" ! 
How pleased was Katrina, how cheery the beautiful 
stewardess ! 

4 'Good-night! Good-night! Sleep well ! Sleep well!" 
they both said as they left me. 

44 Now it will be different; not te head and feets any 
more. De oder way is bestest," added Katrina, as she 
lurched out of the room. 

How triumphantly I locked the door ! How well I slept ! 
All of which would be of no consequence here, except that 
it makes such a background for what followed. Out of a 
sleep sound as only the sleep of one worn out by seasick- 
ness can be, I was roused b} 7 a dash of water in my face. 
Too bewildered at first to understand what had happened, 
I sat up in bed quickly, and thereby brought my face con- 
siderably nearer the port-hole, directly above my pillow, 
just in time to receive another full dash of water in my 
very teeth; and water D3 7 no means clean, either, as I in- 
stantly perceived. The situation explained itself. The 
port-hole had not been shut tight ; the decks were being 
washed. Swash, swash, it came, with frightful dexterity, 
aimed, it would seem, at that very port-hole, and nowhere 
else. I sprang up, seized the handle of the port-hole win- 
dow, and tried to tighten it. In my ignorance and fright 
I turned it the wrong wa} T ; in poured the dirty water. 
There stood I, clapping the window to with all my might, 
but utterly unable either to fasten it or to hold it tight 
enough to keep out the w^ater. Calling for help was use- 
less, even if my voice could have been heard above the 
noise of the boat ; the door of my cabin was locked. 
Swash, swash, in it came, more and more, and dirtier and 
dirtier ; trickling down the back of the red A r elvet sofa, 
drenching 1113' pillows and sheets, and spattering me. One 
of the few things one never ceases being astonished at in 
this world is the length a minute can seem when one is 



THE KATRINA SAGA. 287 

uncomfortable. It couldn't have been many minutes, but 
it seemed an hour, before I had succeeded in partially fas- 
tening that port-hole, unlocking that cabin door, and bring- 
ing Anna to the rescue. Before she arrived the dirty 
swashes had left the first port-hole and gone to the second, 
which, luckily, had been fastened tight, and all danger was 
over. But if I had been afloat and in danger of drowning, 
her S3'mpatli3 T could not have been greater. She came 
running, her feet bare, — very white they were, too, and 
rosy pink on the outside edges, like a baby's, I noticed, — 
and her gown but parti}' on. It was only half-past four, 
and she bad been, no doubt, as sound asleep as I. With 
comic pantomime of distress, and repeated exclamations 
of " Poor lady, poor lady ! " which phrase I already knew 
b}' heart, she gathered up the wet bed, made me another 
in a dry corner, and then vanished ; and I heard her tell- 
ing the tale of nry disaster, in excited tones, to Katrina, 
who soon appeared with a look half sympath}-, half amuse- 
ment, on her face. 

"Now, dat is great tings," she said, giving the innocent 
port-hole another hard twist at the handle. " I tink 30U 
vill be glad ven 3-011 comes to Christiania. De3' sa3^ it vill 
be tere at ten, but I tink it is only shtories." 

It was not. Already we were well up in the smooth- 
ness and shelter of the beautiful Christiania Fjord, — a 
great bay, which is in the beginning like a sea looking 
southward into an ocean; then reaches up northward, 
counting its miles by scores, shooting its shining inlets to 
right and left, narrowing and yielding itself more and 
more to the embrace of the land, till, suddenly, headed 
off b3 T a knot of hills, it turns around, and as if seeking 
the outer sea it has left behind runs due south for miles, 
making the peninsula of Nesodden. On this peninsula is 
the little town of Drobak, where thirty thousand pounds' 
worth of ice is stored every winter, to be sold in London 
as " Wenham Lake ice." This ice was in summer the 
water of countless little lakes. The region round about 
the Christiania Fjord is set full of them, lily-grown and 
fir-shaded. Once they freeze over, they are marked for 
their destiny ; the snow is kept from them ; if the surface 
be too much roughened it is planed ; then it is lined off 
into great squares, cut out by an ice-plough, pried up b} r 



288 NORWAY, DENMARK, AND GERMANY. 

wedges, loaded on carts, and carried to the ice-houses. 
There it is packed into solid bulk, with layers of sawdust 
between to prevent the blocks from freezing together 
again. 

The fjord was so glassy smooth, as we sailed up, that 
even the " Jupiter" could not roll, but glided ; and seemed 
to try to hush its jarring sounds, as if holding its breath, 
with sense of the shame it was to disturb such sunny silence. 
The shores on either hand were darkly wooded ; here and 
there a country-seat on higher ground, with a gay flag 
floating out. No Norwegian house is complete without 
its flagstaff. On Sundays, on all holidays, on the birth- 
da}^ of members of the family, and on all days when 
guests are expected at the house, the flag is run up. This 
pretty custom gives a festal air to all places, since one 
can never walk far without coming on a house that keeps 
either a birthday or a guest-day. 

There seemed almost a mirage on the western shore of 
the bay. The captain, noticing this, called nry attention 
to it, and said it was often to be seen on the Norway 
fjords, " but it was alwa} T s on the head." In reply to my 
puzzled look, he went on to say, by way of making it per- 
fectly clear, that "the mountains stood always on their 
heads;" that is, "their heads down to the heads of the 
other mountains." He then spoke of the strange looming 
of the water-line often seen in Holland, where he had trav- 
elled ; but where, he said he never wished to go again, 
they were " such dirty people." This accusation brought 
against the Dutch was indeed startling. I exclaimed in 
surprise, saying that the world gave the Dutch credit for 
being the cleanliest of people. Yes, he said, they did 
scrub ; it was to be admitted that they kept their houses 
clean ; " but they do put the spitkin on the table when 
they eat." 

" Spitkin," cried I. " What is that ? You do not mean 
spittoon, surely ? " 

" Yes, yes, that is it ; the spitkin in which to spit. It 
is high, like what we keep to put flowers in, — so high," 
holding his hand about twelve inches from the table ; 
" made just like what we put for flowers ; and thej T put it 
always on the table when they are eating. I have mj'self 
seen it. And they do eat and spit, and eat and spit, 



THE KATRINA SAGA. 289 

ugh ! " And the captain shook himself with a great shud- 
der, as well he might, at the recollection. "I do never 
wish to see Holland again." 

I took the opportunity then to praise the Norwegian 
spitkin, which is a most ingenious device; and not only 
ingenious, but wholesome and cleanly. It is an open 
brass pan, some four inches in depth, filled with broken 
twigs of green juniper. These are put in fresh and 
clean every day, — an invention, no doubt, of poverty 
in the first place ; for the Norwegian has been hard 
pressed for centuries, and has learned to set his fragrant 
juniper and fir boughs to all manner of uses unknown 
in other countries ; for instance, spreading them down for 
outside door-mats, in country-houses, — another pretty 
and cleanly custom. But the juniper- filled spitkin is the 
triumph of them all, and he would be a benefactor who 
would introduce its civilization into all countries. The 
captain seemed pleased with m}~ commendation, and said 
hesitatingly, — 

"There is a tale, that. The}^ do say, — excuse me," 
bowing apologetically, — " they do sa}* that it is in Amer- 
ica spitted everywhere ; and that an American who was 
in Norway did see the spitkin on the stove, but did not 
know it was spitkin." 

This part of the story I could most easily credit, having 
myself looked wonderingly for several days at the pretty 
little oval brass pan, filled with juniper twigs, standing 
on the hearth of the turret-like stove in my Bergen bed- 
room, and having finally come to the conclusion that the 
juniper twigs must be kept there for kindlings. 

"So he did spit eveiywhere on the stove ; it was all 
around spitted. And when the servant came in he said, 
' Take away that thing with green stiuT; I want to spit in 
that place.' " 

The captain told this story with much hesitancy of man- 
ner and repeated " excuse me's ; " but he was reassured by 
my hearty laughter, and nry confession that 1113- own igno- 
rance of the proper use of the juniper spitkin had been 
quite equal to my countryman's. 

Christiania looks well, as one approaches it by water ; 
it is snugged in on the lower half of an amphitheatre of 
high wooded hills, which open as they recede, showing 

19 



290 NORWAY, DENMARK, AND GERMANY. 

ravines, and suggesting countless delightful ways up and 
out into the country. Many ships lie in the harbor ; on 
either hand are wooded peninsulas and islands ; and every- 
where are to be seen light or bright-colored country-houses. 
The first expression of the cit}' itself, as one enters it, 
is disappointingly modern, if one has his head full of Har- 
alds and Olafs, and expects to see some traces of the old 
Osloe. The Christiania of to-day is new, as newness is 
reckoned in Norway, for it dates back only to the middle 
of the sixteenth Jentury ; but it is as characteristically Nor- 
wegian as if it were older, — a pleasanter place to staj T in 
than Bergen, and a much better starting-point for Norway 
travel. 

" A cautious guest, 
When he comes to his hostel, 

Speaketh but little ; 
With his ears he listeneth, 
With his eyes he looketh : 
Thus the wise learneth," 

an old Norwegian song sa}'s. 

When walking through the labyrinths of the Victoria 
Hotel in Christiania, and listening with nn T ears, I heard 
dripping and plashing water, and when, looking with my 
eyes, I saw long dark corridors, damp courtyards, and 
rooms on which no sun ever had shone, I spoke little, but 
forthwith drove away in search of airier, sunnier, drier 
quarters. There were many mysterious inside balconies 
of beautiful gay flowers at the Victoria, but the}' did not 
redeem it. 

" I tink dat place is like a prison more tan it is like a 
hotle," said Katrina, as we drove away ; in which she was 
quite right. " I don't see vlry tey need make a hdtle like 
clat ; nobody vould stay in prison ! " At the Hotel Scan- 
dinavie, a big room with six sides and five windows 
pleased her better. " Dis is vat you like," she said ; " here 
tere is light." 

Light ! If there had only been darkness ! In the Nor- 
way summer one comes actually to yearn for a little 
Christian darkness to go to bed by ; much as he ma}' crave 
a stronger sun b} r day, to keep him warm, he would like to 
have a reasonable night-time for sleeping. At first there 
is a stimulus, and a weird sort of triumphant sense of 



THE KATRTNA SAGA. 291 

outwitting Nature, in finding one's self able to read or to 
write by the sun's light till nearly midnight of the clock. 
But presently it becomes clear that the outwitting is on the 
other side. What avails it that there is light enough for 
one to write by at ten o'clock at night, ^ff he is tired 
out, does not want to write, and longs for, nothing but to 
go to sleep? If it were dark, and he longed to write, noth- 
ing would be easier than to light candles and write all 
night, if he chose and could pay for hfs candles. But 
neither money nor ingenuity can compassjfor him a normal 
darkness to sleep in. The Norwegian Souse is one-half 
window : in their long winters they need&ll the sun they 
can get ; not an outside blind, not an in^le shutter, not a 
dark shade, to be seen ; streaming, flooding, radiating in 
and round about the rooms, comes the light, welcome or 
unwelcome, early and late. And to the words kl early" 
and " late" there are in a Norway summer new meanings : 
the early light of the summer morning sets in about half- 
past two : the late light of the summer evening fades into 
a luminous twilight about eleven. Enjoyment of this spe- 
cies of perpetual day soon comes to an end. After the 
traveller has written home to everybody once b} T broad 
daylight at ten o'clock, the fun of the thing is over : nor- 
mal sleepiness begins to hunger for its rights, and dissatis- 
faction takes the place of wondering amusement. This 
dissatisfaction reaches its climax in a few days ; then, if 
he is wise, the traveller provides himself with several 
pieces of dark green cambric, which he pins up at his 
windows at bedtime, thereby making it possible to get 
seven or eight hours' rest for his tired eyes. But the 
green cambric will not shut out sounds ; and he is lucky 
if he is not kept awake until one or two o'clock every 
night by the unceasing tread and loud chatter of the cheer- 
ful Norwegians, who have been forced to form the habit of 
sitting up half their night-time to get in the course of a 
year their full quota of daytime. 

"I tink King Ring lived not far from dis place," said 
Katrina, stretching her head out of first one and then 
another of the five windows, and looking up and down the 
bus}- streets ; "not in Christiania, but I tink not very far 
away. Did ever you hear of King Ring ? Oh, dat is our 
best story in all Norway, — te saga of King Ring ! " 



292 NORWAY, DENMARK, AND GERMANY. 

" Cannot you tell it to me, Katrina?" said I, trying to 
speak as if I had never heard of King Ring. 

"Veil, King Ring, he loved Ingeborg. I cannot tell; 
I do not remember. My father, you see, — not my right 
father, but nvy father the hatter, he whose little home I 
showed you in Bergen, — he used to take books out vere 
you pay so much for one week, } t ou see ; and I only get 
half an hour, maybe, or few minutes, but I steal de book, 
and read all vat I can. I vas only little den : oh, it is 
years ago. But it is our best story in all Norway. Inge- 
borg was beauty, you see, and all in te kings' families vat 
van ted her : many ghentlemens, and Ring, he killed three 
or four I tink ; and den after he killed dem three or four, 
den he lost her, after all, don't you see ; and tat was te 
fun of it." 

"But I don't think that was funny at all, Katrina," 
I said. " I don't believe King Ring thought it so." 

" No, I don't tink, either; but den, you see, he had all 
killed for nothing, and den he lost her himself. I tink it 
was on the ice : it broke. A stranger told dem not to 
take the ice ; but King Ring, he would go. I tink dat 
was te wa}- it was." 

It was plain that Katrina' s reminiscences of her stolen 
childish readings of the Frithiof's Saga were incorrect as 
well as fragmentaiy, but her eager enthusiasm over it was 
delicious. Her face kindled as she repeated, "Oh, it is 
our best story in all Norway ! " and when I told her that 
the next day she should go to a circulating library and get 
a copy of the book and read it to me, her eyes actually 
flashed with pleasure. 

Earl}' the next morning she set off*. A nondescript rov- 
ing commission she bore : "A cop} r of the Frithiof's Saga 
in Norwegian, [how guiltily I feared she might stumble 
upon it in an English translation ! ] and anything in the 
way of fruit or vegetables." These were her instructions. 
It was an hour before she came back, flushed with victory, 
sure of her success and of my satisfaction. She burst 
into the room, brandishing in one hand two turnips and 
a carrot ; in the other she hugged up in front of her a 
newspaper, bursting and red-stained, full of fresh rasp- 
berries ; under her left arm, held very tight, a little old 
copy of the Frithiof's Saga. Breathless, she dropped 



THE KATRINA SAGA. 293 

the raspberries down, newspaper and all, in a rolling pile 
on the table, exclaiming, "I tink I shall not get tese 
home, after I get te oders in my oder hand ! Are tese 
what you like? " holding the turnips and carrot close up to 
nry face. "I vas asking for oranges," she continued, 
" but it is one month ago since they leaved Christiania." 

" What ! " I exclaimed. 

" One mont ago since de}~ were to see in Christiania," 
she repeated impatiently. "It is not mont since I vas 
eating dem in Bergen. I tough t in a great place like 
Christiania clere would be more tings as in Bergen ; but it 
is all shtories, you see." 

How well I came to know the look of that little ragged 
old copy of the grand Saga, and of Katrina's face, as she 
bent puzzling over it, every now and then bursting out 
with some ejaculated bit of translation, beginning always 
with, "Veil, you see! " I kept her hard at work at it, 
reading it to me, while I lingered over my lonely break- 
fasts and dinners, or while we sat under fragrant fir-trees 
on country hills. Wherever we went, the little old book 
and Katrina's Norwegian and English Dictionary, older 
still, went with us. 

Her English always incalculably wrong and right, in 
startling alternations, became a thousand times droller 
when she set herself to deliberate renderings of the lines 
of the Saga. She went often, in one bound, in a single 
stanza, from the extreme of nonsense to the climax of 
poetical beauty of phrase ; her pronunciation, always as 
unexpected and irregular as her construction of phrases, 
grew less and less correct, as she grew excited and ab- 
sorbed in the tale. The troublesome th sound, which in 
ordinary conversation she managed to enunciate in perhaps 
one time out of ten, disappeared entirely from her poetry ; 
and in place of it, came the most refreshing fs and d's. 
The worse her pronunciation and the more broken her 
English, the better I liked it, and the more poetical was 
the translation. Man}- men have tried their hand at 
translation of the Frithiof's Saga, but I have read none 
which gave me so much pleasure as I had from hearing 
Katrina's ; neither clo I believe that any poet has studied 
and rewritten it, however cultured he might be, with more 
enthusiasm and delight than this Norwegian girl of the 



294 NORWAY, DENMARK, AND GERMANY. 

people, to whom many of the mythological allusions were 
as unintelligible as if they had been written in Sanskrit. 
She had a convenient way of disposing of those when she 
came to such as she did not understand : " Dat 's some o' 
dem old gods, you see, — dem gods vat dey used to wor- 
ship." It was evident from niairy of Katrina's terms of 
expression, and from her peculiar delight in the most 
poetical lines and thoughts in the Saga, that she herself 
was of a highly poetical temperament. I was more and 
more impressed by this, and began at last to marvel at 
the fineness of her appreciations. But I was not pre- 
pared for her turning the tables suddenly upon me, as she 
did one day, after I had helped her to a few phrases in a 
stanza over which she had come to a halt in difficulties. 

" As sure 's I 'm aliv," she exclaimed, " I believe you 're 
a poet your own self, too ! " While I was considering 
what reply to make to this charge, she went on : " Dat's 
what tey call me in my own country. I can make songs. 
I make a many : all te Irirtdays and all te extra days in 
our family, all come to me and sa\', ' Now, Katrina, you 
has to make song.' Dey tink I can make song in one 
minute for all ! [What a kinship is there, all the world 
over, in some sorts of misery !] Ven I 've went to Amer- 
ica, I made a nice song," she added. " I vould like you 
to see." 

" Indeed, I would like very much to see it, Katrina," I 
replied. " Have 3011 it here ? " 

" I got it in nry head, here," she said, laughing, tapping 
her broad forehead. " I keeps it in nry head." 

But it was a long time before I could persuade her to 
give it to me. She persisted in saying that she could not 
translate it. 

"Surely, Katrina," I said, "it cannot be harder than 
the Frithiof's Saga, of which you have read me so 
much." 

4 'Dat is ver} T different," was all I could extract from 
her. I think that she felt a certain pride in not hav- 
ing her own stanzas fail of true appreciation owing to 
their being put in broken English. At last, however, I 
got it. She had been hard at work a whole forenoon in 
her room with her dictionary and pencil. In the after- 
noon she came to me, holding several sheets of much- 



TEE KATRINA SAGA. 295 

scribbled brown paper in her hand, and said shyly, "Now 
I can read it." I wrote it clown as she read it, only in 
one or two instances helping her with a word, and here 
it is : — 

SONG ON MY DEPARTURE FROM BERGEN FOR 
AMERICA. 

The time of departure is near, 

And I am no more in my home ; 
But, God, he thou my protector. 

I don't know how it will go, 
Out on the hig ocean, 

From my father and mother ; 
I don't know for sure where at last 

My dwelling-place will he on the earth. 

My thanks to all my dear, 

To my foster father and mother ; 
In the distant land, as well as the near, 

Your word shall he my guide. 
It ma}* happen that we never meet on earth, 

But my wish is that God forever 
Be with you and bless you. 

Don't forget ; bring my compliments over 

To that place where my cradle stood, — 
The dear Akrehavnske waves, 

What I lately took leave of. 
Don't mourn, my father and mother, 

It is to my benefit ; 
My best thanks for all the goodness 

You have bestowed on me. 

A last farewell to you 

All, my dear friends ; 
May the life's fortune, honor, and glory 

Be with you wherever you are! 
I know you are all standing 

In deep thoughts 
When Harald Haarfager weighs anchor, 

And I am away from you. 

A wreath of memory 

I will twine or twist round 
My dear native land, 

And as a lark happy sing 
This my weil-meaned song. 

Oh, that we all may be 
Wreathed witli glory, 

And in the last carry our wreaths of glory 
In heaven's hall ! 



296 NORWAY, DENMARK, AND GERMANY. 

"Watching my face keenly, she read my approbation of 
her simple little song, and nodding her head with satisfac- 
tion, said, — 

u Oh, sometime you see I ain't quite that foolish I look 
to ! I got big book of all nry songs. Nobocty but myself 
could read clem papers. It is all pulled up, and five six 
words standing one on top of oder." 



II. 

Murray's Guide-book, that paradoxical union of the 
false and the true, says of Christiania, "There is not 
much of interest in the town, and it may be seen in from 
four to five hours." The person who made that statement 
did not have Katrina with him, and perhaps ought there- 
fore to be forgiven. He had not strolled with her through 
the market square of a morning, and among the old women, 
squatted low, with half a dozen flat, open baskets of fruit 
before them : blueberries, currants, raspberries, plums, 
pears, and all shades, sizes, and flavors of cherries, from 
the pale and tasteless yellow up to those wine-red and 
juicy as a grape ; the very cheny, it must have been, 
which made Lucullus think it worthwhile to carry the tree 
in triumphal procession into Rome. Queer little wooden 
boxes set on four low wheels, with a short pole, Iry which 
a strong man or woman can draw them, are the distinctive 
features of out-door trade in the Christiania market-places. 
A compacter, cheaper device for combining storage, trans- 
portation, and exhibition was never hit on. The boxes 
hold a great deal. They make a good counter ; and when 
there are twent} T or thirty of them together, with poles set 
up at the four corners, a clothes-line fastened from pole to 
pole and swung full of cheap stuffs of one sort and another, 
ready-made garments, hats, caps, bonnets, shoes, clothes- 
pins, w^ooden spoons, baskets, and boxes, — the venders 
sitting behind or among their wares, on firkins bottom 
side up, — it is a spectacle not to be despised ; and when 
a market-place, filled with such many-colored fluttering 



THE KATRINA SAGA. 297 

merchandise as this, is also flanked by old-clothes stalls 
which are like nothing except the Ghetto, or Rag Fair in 
London, it is indeed worth looking at. To have at one's 
side an alert native, of frugal mind and unsparing tongue, 
belonging to that class of women who can never see a 
low-priced article offered for sale without, for the moment, 
contemplating it as a possible purchase, adds incalculably 
to the interest of a saunter through such a market. The 
thrifty Katrina never lost sight of the possibility of lighting 
upon some bargain of value to her home housekeeping ; 
and our rooms filled up from day to day with her acquisi- 
tions. She was absolutely without false pride in the matter 
of carrying odd burdens. One da} T she came lugging a big 
twisted door-mat with, " You see clat? For de door. In 
Bergen I give exact double." The climax of her purchases 
was a fine washboard, which she brought in in her arms, 
and exclaimed, laughing, "What you tink the porter say 
to me? He ask if I am going to 'take in washing up here. 
I only give two crowns for dat," she said, eying it with the 
fondest exultation, and setting it in a conspicuous place, 
leaning against the side of the room; "it is better as I 
get for four in Bergen." Good little Katrina ! her hands 
were too white and pretty to be spoiled by hard rubbing 
on a washboard. They were her one vanity, and it was 
pardonable. 

" Did you ever see hand like mine?" she said one day, 
spreading her right hand out on the table. " Dere was 
two English ladies, dey say it ought to be made in warx, 
and send to see in Crystal Palace. See clem?" she con- 
tinued, sticking her left forefinger into the four dimples 
which marked the spots where knuckles are in ordinary 
hands ; " dem is nice." It was true. The hand was not 
small, but it was a model: plump, solid, dimples for 
knuckles, all the fingers straight and shapely ; done in 
"warx," it would have been a beautiful thing, and her 
pleasure in it was just as guileless as her delight in her 
washboard. 

As she delved deeper in her Frithiof 's Saga, she discov- 
ered that she had been greatly wrong in her childish im- 
pressions of the story. "It was not as I tought," she 
said : " King Ring did get Ingeborg after ; but he had to 
die, and leaved her." 



298 NORWAY, DEXMARK, AXD GERMANY. 

When we went out to Oscar's Hall, which is a pretty 
country-seat of the king's, on the beautiful peninsula of 
Ladegaardsoen, she was far more interested in the sculp- 
tured cornice which told the story of Frithiof and Ingeborg, 
than in any of the more splendid things, or those more 
suggestive of the life of the king. The rooms are showily 
decorated : ceilings in white with gold stars, walls panelled 
with velvet ; gay-colored frescos, and throne-like chairs 
in which "many kings and queens have sat," the old 
woman who kept the keys said. Everywhere were the 
royal shields with the crown and the lion ; at the corners 
of the doors, at the crossings of ceiling beams, above 
brackets, looking-glasses, and on chair-backs. 

"I tink the king get tired looking at his crown all de 
time," remarked Katrina, composed^. "I wonder vere 
dey could put in one more." 

The bronze statues of some of the old kings pleased her 
better. She studied them carefully : Olaf and Harald 
Haarfager, Sverre Sigurdson and Olaf Tryggvesson ; they 
stand leaning upon their spears, as if on guard. The face 
of Harald looks true to the record of him : a fair-haired, 
blue-eyed man, who stopped at nothing when he wanted his 
way, and was just as ready to fall in love with six succes- 
sive women after he had labored hard twelve years for 
G}'da, and won her, as before. 

"He is de nicest," said Katrina, lingering before his 
statue, and reaching up and fingering the bronze, curiously. 
" Ain't it wonderful how dey can make such tings !" she 
added with a deep-drawn sigh. But when I pointed to 
the cornice, and said, "Katrina, I think that must be the 
story of the Frithiof 's Saga," she bounded, and threw her 
head back, like a deer snuffing the wind. " Ja, ja," cried 
the old woman, evidenth' pleased that I recognized it, and 
then she began to pour out the tale. Is there a peasant in 
all Norwa}- that does not know it, I wonder ? The first me- 
dallion was of the children, Frithiof and Ingeborg, playing 
together. " Dere," said Katrina, " dat is vat I told you. 
Two trees growed in one place, nicely in the garden ; one 
growed with de strongth of de oak, dat was Frithiof; and 
de rose in the green walle}-, dat was Ingeborg de beaut}'." 

Very closely she scanned the medallions one after the 
other, criticising their fidelity to the record. When she 



TEE KATRINA SAGA. 299 

came to the one where Frithiof is supporting King Ring 
on his knee, fainting, or sleeping, she exclaimed, "Dere, 
if he had been dat bad, he could have killed King Ring 
den, yen he was sleeping ; but see, he have thrown his 
sword away ; " and at last, when the sculpture represented 
King Ring dying, and bequeathing his beautiful queen and 
her children to Frithiof, she exclaimed, " Dere, dem two 
bo}'S belongs to King Ring ; but now Frithiof gets her. 
Dat is good, after all dat dem two had gone through with." 

King Oscar makes very little use of this pretty country- 
house. He comes there sometimes once or twice in the 
course of a summer, for a day, or part of a day, but never 
to sleep, the old woman said. All the rest of the time it 
is empty and desolate, with only this one poor old woman 
to keep it tidy ; a good berth for her, but a pity that 
nobod}* should be taking comfort all summer in the superb 
outlooks and off-looks from its windows and porch, and in 
the shady walks along the banks of the fjord. One of the 
old Norway kings, Hakon, thought the peninsula beautiful 
enough for a wedding morning gift to his queen ; but it 
seems not to have been held so dear by her as it ought, 
fur she gave it away to the monks who lived on the neigh- 
boring island of Hovedoen. Then, in the time of the 
Reformation, when monks had to scatter and go begging, 
and monastic properties were lying about loose every- 
where, the Norwegian kings picked up Ladegaardsoen 
again, and it has been a crown property ever since. 

One of the most charming of the short drives in what 
Katrina called "the nearance" of Christiania is to the 
" Grefsens Bad," a water-cure establishment only two 
miles away, by road, to the north, but lying so much 
higher up than the town that it seems to lie in another 
world, — as in fact it does ; for, climbing there, one rises 
to another and so different air that he becomes another 
man, being born again through his lungs. It is a good 
pull up a stony and ill-kept road, to reach the place ; but 
it is more than worth while, for the sake of the clear look- 
out to sea, over a delicious foreground of vivid green fields 
and woods. 

u This is the place where all the sick peoples in Norway 
do come when de doctors cannot do nottings more for 
dem," said Katrina; "den dey comes here. Here came 



•300 NORWAY, DENMARK, AND GERMANY. 

our last king, King Oscar, and den he did die on the dock 
yen he vas coming away. He had all de climb dis hill vor 
notting. Ven it is the time, one has to go, no matter how 
much money dey will pa}' ; dere is One " — here she 
stopped hesitating for a word — "you know all vat I 
mean : dere is One what has it all his own way, not de 
way we wish it shall be." This she said devoutly, and 
was silent for an unwonted length of time afterwards. 

As we were driving down the steepest part of the hill, a 
man came running after us, calling so loudly to us to stop 
that we were alarmed, thinking something must be wrong 
with our carriage or in the road. Not at all. He was 
a roadside merchant ; not precisely a pedler, since he 
never went out of his own town, but a kind of aristocratic 
vender in a small circuit, it seemed ; we saw him after- 
wards in other suburbs, bearing with him the same myste- 
rious basket, and I very much fear, poor fellow, the same 
still more m}-sterious articles in it. Not even on Norwe- 
gian country-roads, I think, could there be found many 
souls so dead to all sense of beauty as to buy the hideous 
and costly combinations which he insisted upon laying in 
my lap : a sofa-cushion, square, thick, and hard, of wine- 
colored velvet, with a sprawling tree and bird laid upon it 
in an applique pattern cut out of black and white velvet ; 
a long and narrow strip of the same velvet, with the same 
black and white velvet foliage and poultry, was trimmed 
at the ends with heavy fringe, and intended for a sideboard 
or a bureau ; a large square tablecloth to match completed 
the list of his extraordinary wares. It was so odd a 
wayside incident that it seemed to loom quite out of its 
normal proportions as a mere effort at traffic. He insisted 
on spreading the articles in iny lap. He could not be 
persuaded to take them away. The driver turning round 
on his seat, and Katrina leaning over from hers, both rapt 
in admiration of the monstrosities, were stolidly oblivious 
of my indifference. The things seemed to grow bigger 
and bigger each moment, and more and more hideous, and 
it was at last only by a sudden effort of sternness, as if 
shaking off a spell, that I succeeded in compelling the 
man to lift them from my knees and fold them awa}' in his 
basket. As soon as he had gone, I was seized with 
misgivings that I had been ungracious ; and these misgiv- 



TEE KATRINA SAGA. 301 

ings were much heightened by Katrina's soliloquizing as 
follows : — 

" He ! I tink he never take clem tings away. His wife 
are sick ; dat is de reason he is on de road instead of her. 
He was sure you would buy clem." 

I hope they are sold. I wish I could know. 

The suburbs of Christiania which lie along the road to 
the Grefsens Bad are ugh', dusty, and unpleasing. "I 
tink we go some oder wa}' clan way we came," said Katrina. 
" Dere must be better waj'." So saying, she stopped the 
driver abruptly, and after some vigorous conversation he 
took another road. 

"He ask more money to go by St. John's Hill, but I 
tell him you not pay any more. I can see it is not farther ; 
I ask him if he tink I got eyes in de head," she said 
scornfully, waving her fat fingers towards the city which 
lay close at hand. 

"Ah, dat is great day," she continued, "St. John's 
Day. Keep you dat in America? Here it is fires all 
round, from one hill to one hill. Dat is from de old time. 
I tink it is from Catolics. De}' did do so much for clem old 
saints, you see. I tink dat is it ; but I tink dey do not 
just know in Norway to-day what for de} T clo it. It has 
been old custom from parents to parents." 

Then I told her about Balder and his death, and asked 
her if she had never seen the country people put a boat on 
the top of their bonfire on St. John's Eve. 

"Yes, I did see dat, once, in Stavanger," she replied, 
" but it was old boat ; no use any more. I tink dat be 
to save wood. It are cheapest wood dey have, old boat. 
Dat were not to give to any god." 

" No, 3'ou are mistaken, Katrina," I said. " They have 
done that for hundreds of years in Norway. It is to 
remind them of Balcler's great ship, the Hringhorn, and to 
commemorate his death." 

" May be," she said eurtly, " but I don't tink. I only 
see dat once ; and all my life I see de fires, all round 
Bergen, and everywhere, and dere was no boat on dem. 
I don't tink." 

We drove into the city- through one of the smaller fruit 
markets, where, late as it was, the old women still lingered 
with their baskets of cherries, pears, and currants. They 



302 NORWAY, DENMARK, AND GERMANY. 

were not losing time, for they were all knitting, fast as 
their fingers could fly ; such a thing as a Norwegian wasting 
time is not to be seen, I verily believe, from the North 
Cape to the Skager Rack, and one would think that they 
knit stockings enough for the whole continent of Europe ; 
old men, old women, little girls, and even little boys, all 
knitting, knitting, morning, noon, and night, by roadsides, 
on door-sills, in market-places ; wherever they sit down, or 
stand, to rest, they knit. As our carriage stopped, down 
went the stockings, balls rolling, yarn tangling, on the 
sidewalk, and up jumped the old women, all crowding 
round me, smiling, each holding out a specimen of her 
fruit for me to taste. "Eat, lady, eat. It is good." 
"Eat and you will buy." "No such cherries as these 
in Christiania." "Taste of my plums." A chorus of 
imploring voices and rattling hail of sks. Hurried and 
confused talk in the Norwegian tongue as spoken by 
uneducated people is a bewildering racket ; it hardly 
sounds like human voices. If the smiles did not redeem 
it, it would be something insupportable ; but the smiles 
do redeem it, transfigure it, lift it up to the level of supe- 
rior harmonies. Such graciousness of e3 T e and of smiling 
lips triumphs over all possible discord of sound, even 
over the Norwegian battery of consonants. 

Katrina fired back to them all. I fear she reproved 
them ; for they subsided suddenly into silence, and left 
the outstretched withered palms holding the fruit to speak 
for themselves. 

"I only tell dem } T ou cannot buy all de market out. 
You can say vat you like," she said. 

Pears and cherries, and plums too, because the old 
plum-woman looked poorer than the rest, I bought ; and 
as we drove away the chorus followed us again with good 
wishes. " Dey are like crazy old vomans," remarked 
Katrina; "I never heard such noise of old vomans to 
once time before." A few minutes after we reached the 
house she disappeared suddenly, and presently returned 
with a little cantaloupe melon in her hands. Standing 
before me, with a curious and hesitating look on her face, 
she said, "Is dis vat you like?" 

" Oh, yes," I exclaimed, grateful for the sight. " I was 
longing for one yesterday. Where did you get it?" 



THE KATRINA SAGA. 303 

"I not get it. I borrow it for you to see. I tell 
the man I bring it back," she replied, still with the same 
curious expressions of doubt flitting over her queer little 
face. 

" Wiry, whose melon is it?" I exclaimed. " What did 
you bring it for if it were not for sale? " 

" Oh, it is for selled, if you like to buy," she said, still 
with the hesitant expression. 

" Of course I like to buy it," I said impatiently. " How 
much does it cost?" 

" Dat is it," replied Katrina, sententiously. "It is too 
dear to buj T , I tell the man ; but he said I should bring it 
to you, to see. I tink you vill not buy it ; " still with the 
quizzical look on her face. 

Quite out of patience, I cried, " But why don't you tell 
me the price of it ? I should like it very much. It can't 
be so very dear." 

" Dat it can," answered Katrina, chuckling, at last let- 
ting out her suppressed laugh. ' ' He ask six kroner for 
dat ting ; and I tink you not buy it at such price, so I 
bring to make you laugh." 

One dollar and sixty-two cents for a tiny cantaloupe ! 
Katrina had her reward. "Oh, but I am clat glad ven 
I make 3-011 laugh," she said roguishly, picking up her 
melon, as I cried out with surprise and amusement, — 

" I should think not. I never heard of such a price for 
a melon." 

"So I tink," said Katrina. "I ask de man who buy 
dem melons, and he say plenty peoples ; but I tink it is all 
shtories." And she ran downstairs laughing so that I 
heard her, all the way, two flights down to the door. 

High up on the dark wooded mountain wall which lies 
to the north and northwest of Christiania is a spot of light 
color. In the early morning it is vivid green ; sometimes 
at sunset it catches a tint of gold ; but neither at morn nor 
at night can it ever be overlooked. It is a perpetual lure 
to the eye, and stimulus to the imagination. What eyry 
is it that has cleared for itself this* loop-hole in the solid 
mountain-forest? Is it a clearing, or only a bit of varied 
wooding of a contrasting color to the rest ? For several 
days I looked at it before I asked ; and I had grown so 
impressed by its mysterj* and charm, that when I found 



304 NORWAY, DENMARK, AND GERMANY. 

it was a house, the summer home of a rich Christiania 
family, and one of the places always shown to travellers, I 
felt more than half-way minded not to go near it, — to keep 
it still nothing more than a far-away, changing, luring 
oasis of sunn}' gold or wistful green on the mountain-side. 
Had it been called by any other name, 1113- instinct to 
leave it unknown might have triumphed ; but the words 
"Frogner Salter" were almost as great a lure to the 
imagination as the green oasis itself. The saeter, high up 
on some mountain-side, is the fulfilling of the Norwegian 
out-door life, the ke} T -note of the Norwegian summer. 
The gentle kine know it as well as their mistresses who 
go thither with them. Three months in the upper air, 
in the spicy and fragrant woods, — no matter if it be 
solitary and if the work be hard, the saeter life must 
be the best the Norwegians know, — must elevate and 
develop them, and strengthen them for their long, sunless 
winters. I had looked up from the Vossevangen Valle} T , 
from Ringeriket, and from the Hardanger country to many 
such gleaming points of lighter green, tossed up as it were 
on the billowy forests. The}' were beyond the reach of 
any methods of ascent at my command ; un willingly I had 
accepted again and again the wisdom of the farm people, 
who said " the road up to the saeter was too hard for those 
who were not used to it." Reluctantfy I had put the 
saeter out of my hopes, as a thing to be known only by 
imagination and other people's descriptions. Therefore the 
name of the Frogner Saeter was a lure not to be resisted ; 
a saeter to which one might drive in a comfortable carriage 
over a good road could not be the ideal saeter of the wild 
country life, but still it was called " saeter ;" we would go, 
and we would take a day for the going and coming. 

" Dat will be bestest," said Katrina. " I tink you like 
dat high place better as Christiania." 

On the way we called at the office of a homoeopathic 
physician, whose name had been given to me b}^ a Bergen 
friend. He spoke no English, and for the first time Ka- 
trina's failed. I saw nt once that she did not eonve}' m} r 
meanings to him, nor his to me, with accurac}'. She was 
out of her depth. Her mortification was droll ; it reached 
the climax when it came to the word " djnamic." Poor 
little child ! How should she have known that ! 



THE KATRINA SAGA. 305 

"I vill understand! I vill!" she exclaimed; and the 
good-natured doctor took pains to explain to her at some 
length ; at the end of his explanation she turned to me 
triumphantly, with a nod : " Now I know very well ; it is 
another kind of strongth from the strongth of a machine. 
It is not such strength that you can see, or }-ou can make 
with your hands ; but it is strongth all the same," — a 
definition which might be commended to the careful atten- 
tion of all persons in the habit or need of using the word 
" dynamic." 

It is five miles from Christiania out and up to the Frog- 
ner Saeter, first through pretty suburban streets which are 
more roads than streets, with picturesque wooden houses, 
painted in wonderful colors, — lilac, apple-green, white 
with orange-colored settings to doors and windows, yellow 
pine left its own color, oiled, and decorated with white or 
with maroon red. They look like the gay toy-houses sold 
in boxes for children to plaj- with. There is no one of 
them, perhaps, which one would not grow very weary of, if 
he had to see it every day, but the effect of the succession 
of them along the roadside is surprisingly gay and pic- 
turesque. Their variety of shape and the prett}- little 
balconies of carved lattice-work add much to this pictu- 
resqueness. They are all surrounded by flower-gardens of 
a simple kind, — old-fashioned flowers growing in clumps 
and straight borders, and every window-sill full of plants 
in bloom ; windows all opening outward like doors, so that 
in a warm daj*, when every window-sash is thrown open, 
the houses have a strange look of being a-flutter. There 
is no expression of elegance or of the habits or standards 
of great wealth about these suburban houses of Christiania ; 
but there is a very rare and charming expression of comfort 
and good cheer, and a childlike simplicity which dotes on 
flowers and has not outgrown the love of bright colors. 
I do not know anywhere a region where houses are so 
instantly and good-naturedly attractive, with a suggestion 
of good fellowship, and sensible, easj'-going good times 
inside and out. 

The last three miles of the road to the saeter are steadily 
up, and all the way through dense woods of fir and spruce, 
— that grand Norway spruce, which spreads its boughs 
out generouslv as palms, and loads down each twig so 

20 



306 NORWAY, DENMARK, AND GERMANY. 

full that by their own weight of shining green the lower 
branches trail out along the ground, and the upper ones 
fold a little and slant downwards from the middle, as if 
avalanches of snow had just slid off on each side and bent 
them. Here were great beds of ferns, clusters of bluebells, 
and territories of Linnsea. In June the mountain-side must 
be fragrant with its flowers. 

Katrina glowed with pleasure. In her colder, barrener 
home she had seen no such lavishness as this. 

"Oh, but ven one tinks, how Nature is wonderful ! " she 
cried. "Here all dese tings grow up, demselves ! noting 
to be done. Are dey not wort more dan in gardens? In 
gardens always must be put in a corn before anyting come 
up ; and all dese nice tings come up alone, demselves." 

"Oh, but see vat God has done ; how much better than 
all vat people can ; no matter vat dey make." 

Half-way up the mountain we came to a tiny house, set 
in a clearing barely big enough to hold the house and let a 
little sun in on it from above. 

"Oh, I wish-shed I had dat little house ! " she exclaimed. 
"Dat house could stand in Bergen. I like to carry dat 
home and dem trees to it ; but my husband, he would not 
like it. He likes Bergen house bestest." 

As we drew near the top, we met carriages coming down. 
Evidently it was the custom to drive to the Frogner Sseter. 

" I tink in dat first carriage were Chews," said Katrina, 
scornfully. "I do hate dem Chews. I can't bear dat 
kind of people." 

" Why not, Katrina?" I asked. " It is not fair to hate 
people because of their religion." 

" Oh, dat I don't know about cleir religion," she replied 
carelessly. " I don't tink dey got much religion anyhow. 
I tink dey are kind of thieves. I saw it in New York. 
Ven I went into Chew shop, he saj T a ting are tree dollar ; 
and I say, ' No, dat are too dear.' Den he saj', ' You can 
have for two dollar ; ' and I say, ' No, I cannot take ; ' and 
den he say, 'Oh, have it for one dollar and half;' and I 
tink all such tings are not real. I hate dem Chews. De}' 
are all de same in all places. De}^ are chust like dat if 
de}' come in Norwa} T . Very few Chews comes in Norway. 
Dat is one good ting." 

In a small open, part clearing, part natural rockj*- crest 



TEE KATRINA SAGA. 307 

of the hill, stood the sseter : great spaces of pink heather 
to right and left of it, a" fir wood walling it on two sides ; 
to the south and the east, a clear off-look over the two 
bays of the Christiania Fjord, past all their islands, out 
to sea, and the farthest horizon. Christiania la}' like an 
insignificant huddle of buildings in the nearer foreground ; 
its only beauty now being in its rich surrounding of farm- 
lands, which seemed to hold it like a rough brown pebble 
in an emerald setting. 

The house itself fronted south. Its piazza and front 
windows commanded this grand view. It was of pine logs, 
smoothed and mortised into, each other at the corners. 
Behind it was a hollow square of the farm buildings : 
sheds, barns, and the pretty white cottage of the overseer. 
The overseer's wife came running to meet us, and with 
cordial good-will took us into the house, and showed us 
every room. She had the pride of a retainer in the place ; 
and when she found that none of its beauty was lost on 
me, she warmed and grew communicative. It will not be 
easy to describe the charm of this log-house : only logs 
inside as well as out ; but the logs are Norwaj- pine, 
yellow and hard and shining, taking a polish for floors 
and ceiling as fine as ash or maple, and making for the 
walls belts and stripes of gold color better than paper ; 
all cross beams and partitions are mortised at the joinings, 
instead of crossing and lapping. This alone gives to these 
Norwegian houses an expression quite unlike that of ordi- 
nary log-houses. A little carved work of a simple pattern, 
at the cornices of the rooms and on the ceiling beams, was 
the only ornamentation of the house ; and a great glass 
door, of a single pane, opening on the piazza, was the 
only luxurious thing about it. Everything else was simply 
and beautifully picturesque. Old Norwegian tapestries 
hung here and there on the walls, their vivid reds and 
blues coming out superbly on the yellow pine ; curious 
antique corner cupboards, painted in chaotic colors of fan- 
tastic brightness ; old fireplaces built out into the room, 
in the style of the most ancient Norwegian farm-houses ; 
old brasses, sconces, placques, and candlesticks ; and a 
long dining-table, with wooden benches of hollowed planks 
for seats, such as are to be seen to-da}* in some of the old 
ruined baronial castles in England. 



808 NORWAY, DENMARK, AND GERMANY. 

In the second-stoiy rooms were old-fashioned bedsteads : 
one of carved pine, so high that it needed a step-ladder to 
mount it ; the other built like a cupboard against the wall, 
and shut by two sliding doors, which on being pushed 
back disclosed two narrow bunks. This is the style of 
bed in many of the Norwegian farm-houses still. On the 
sliding door of the upper bunk was a small photograph of 
the prince imperial ; and the woman told us with great 
pride that he had slept one night in that bed. 

Upstairs again, b}' narrow winding stairs, and there 
we found the whole floor left undivided save b\- the big 
chimney-stack which came up in the middle ; the gable 
ends of the garret opened out in two great doors like barn- 
doors ; under the eaves, the whole length of each side, 
was a row of bunk beds, five on each side, separated only 
by a board partition. This was a great common bedroom, 
" used for gentlemen at Christmas time," the woman said. 
" There had as many as fifteen or twenty gentlemen slept 
in that room." 

At Christmas, it seems, it is the habit of the family 
owning this unique and charming countiy-house to come 
up into the woods for a two weeks' festivity. The snow 
is deep. The mercury is well down near zero or below"; but 
the road up the mountain is swept level smooth : sledges 
can go easier in winter than carriages can in summer ; and 
the vast outlook over the glittering white land and shining 
blue sea full of ice islands must be grander than when the 
islands and the land are green. Pine logs in huge fire- 
places can warm airy room ; and persons of the sort that 
would think of spending Christmas in a fir-w r ood on a 
mountain-top could make a house warm even better than 
pine logs could do it. Christmas at the Frogner Sseter 
must be a Christmas worth having. 

"The house is as full as ever it can hold," said the 
woman, "and fifty sit down to dinner sometimes; they 
think nothing of driving up from Christiania and down 
again at midnight." 

What a place for sleigh-bells to ring on a frosty night ; 
that rocky hill-crest swung out as it -were in clear space of 
upper air, with the great Christiania Fjord stretching away 
beneath, an ice-bound, ice-flaked sea, white and steel-black 
under the winter moon ! I fancied the house blazing like a 



THE KATRINA SAGA. 309 

many-sided beacon out of the darkness of the mountain 
front at midnight, the bells clanging, the voices of lovers 
and loved chiming, and laughter and mirth ringing. I 
think for years to come the picture will be so vivid in my 
mind that I shall find myself on many a Christmas night 
mentally listening to the swift bells chiming down the 
mountain from the Frogner Salter. 

The eastern end of the piazza is closed in by a great 
window, one single pane of glass like the door ; so that in 
this corner, sheltered from the wind, but losing nothing of 
the view, one can sit in even cold weather. Katrina 
cuddled herself down like a kitten, in the sun, on the 
piazza steps, and looking up at me, as I sat in this shel- 
tered corner, said approvingly, — 

" Dis you like. I ask de voman if we could stay here ; 
but she got no room : else she would like to keep us. I 
tink I stay here all my life : only for my husband, 1 go 
back." 

Then she pulled out the Saga and read some pages of 
Ingeborg's Lament, convulsing me in the beginning by 
saying that it was "Ingeborg's Whale." It was long 
before I grasped that she meant " Wail." 

" What 3'ou say ven it is like as if j T ou cry, but you 
do not cry?" she said. " Dat is it. It stands in my 
dictionary, whale !" And she reiterated it with some impa- 
tience at my stupidity in not better understanding my own 
language. When I explained to her the vast difference 
between "whale" and "wail," she was convulsed in her 
turn. kk Oh, dere are so many words in English which do 
have same sound and mean so different ting," she said, 
"I tink I never learn to speak English in dis world." 

AVhile w T e were sitting there, a great speckled wood- 
pecker flew out from the depths of the wood, lighted on a 
fir near the house, and began racing up and down the tree, 
tapping the bark with his strong bill, like the strokes of a 
hammer. 

"There is your Gertrude bird, Katrina," said I. She 
looked bewildered. "The woman that Christ punished," 
I said, " and turned her into the Gertrude bird; do you 
not know the old story?" No, she had never heard it. 
She listened with wide-open e3"es while I told her the old 
Norwegian legend, which it was strange that I knew and 



810 NORWAY, DENMARK, AND GERMANY. 

she did not, — how Christ and Peter, stopping one day at 
the door of a woman who was kneading her bread, asked 
her for a piece. She broke a piece for them ; but as she 
was rolling it out, it grew under her roller till it filled her 
table. She laid it aside, saying it was too large, broke off 
another piece, rolled it out with the same result ; it grew 
larger every moment. She laid that aside, and took a 
third bit, the smallest she could possibly break off: the 
same result ; that too grew under her roller till it covered 
the table. Then her heart was entirely hardened, and she 
laid this third piece on one side, saying, " Go your ways, 
I cannot spare 3-011 an}' bread to-day." Then Christ was 
angry, and opened her eyes to see who he was. She fell 
on her knees, and implored his forgiveness ; but he said, 
"No. You shall henceforth seek your bread from day to 
day, between the wood and the bark." And he changed 
her into a bird, — the Gertrude bird, or woodpecker. The 
legend runs, however, that, relenting, the Lord said that 
when the plumage of the bird should become entirety 
black, her punishment should be at an end. The Gertrude 
bird grows darker and darker eveiy 3-ear, and when it is 
old, has no white to be seen in its plumage. When the 
white has all disappeared, then the Lord Christ takes it for 
his own, so the legend says ; and no Norwegian will ever 
injure a Gertrude bird, because he believes it to be under 
God's protection, doing this penance. 

"Is dat true?" asked Katrina, seriously. " Dat must 
have been when de Lord was going about on dis earth ; 
ven he was ghost. I never hear dat." 

I tried to explain to her the idea of a fable. 

"Fable," she said, " fable, — dat is to teach people to 
be giving ven dey got, and not send peoples awaj T vidout 
notings. Dat 's what I see, many times I see. But I do 
not see dat de peoples dat is all for saving all dey got, 
gets any richer. I tink if 3-011 give all the time to dem dat 
is poorer, dat is de wa}' to be richer. Dere is alwa3*s some 
vat is poorer." 

In the cose3 T little sitting-room of her white cottage, the 
farmer's wife gave us a lunch which would not have been 
an3' shame to an3* lacly's table, — scrambled eggs, bread, 
rusks, milk, and a queer sort of election cake, with raisins 
but no sugar. This Katrina eyed with the greed of a 



THE KATRINA SAGA. 311 

child; watched to see if I liked it, and exclaimed, "We 
only get dat once a year, at Christmas time." Seeing that 
I left a large piece on my plate, she finally said, " Do 3-011 
tink it would be shame if 1 take dat home ? It is too good 
to be leaved." With great glee, on m}' first word of per- 
mission, she crammed it into her omnivorous pocket, which 
already held a dozen or more green apples that she had 
persisted in picking up b} T the roadside as we came. 

As we drove down the mountain, the glimpses here and 
there, between the trees, of the fjord and islands were 
even more beautiful than the great panorama seen from 
the top. Little children ran out to open gates for us, and 
made their pretty Norwegian courtesies, with smiles of grat- 
itude for a penny. We met scores of peasant women going 
out to their homes, bearing all sorts of burdens swung 
from a yoke laid across their shoulders. The thing that 
a Norwegian cannot contrive to swing from one side or 
the other of his shoulder-yoke must be very big indeed. 
The yokes seem equally adapted to everything, from 
a butter-firkin to a silk handkerchief full of cabbages. 
Weights which would be far too hea\y to cany in any 
other wa}' the peasants take in this, and trot along be- 
tween their swinging loads at as round a pace as if they 
had nothing to cany. We drove a roundabout way to 
our hotel, to enable Katrina to see an old teacher of hers ; 
through street after street of monotonous stucco-walled 
houses, each with a big open door, a covered wa} r leading 
into a court behind, and glimpses of clothes-lines, or other 
walls and doorways, or green yards, beyond. Two thirds 
of the houses in Christiania are on this plan ; the families 
live in flats, or parts of flats. Sometimes there are eight 
or ten brass bell-handles, one above another, on the side 
of one of these big doorwaj-s, each door-bell marking a 
family. The teacher lived in a respectable but plain 
house of this kind, — she and her sister ; they had taught 
Katrina in Bergen when she was a child, and she retained 
a warm and grateful memory of them ; one had been mar- 
ried, and her husband was in America, where they were 
both going to join him soon. Everywhere in Norwa}' one 
meets people whose hearts are in America, — sons, hus- 
bands, daughters, lovers. Everybody would go if it were 
possible ; once fourteen thousand went in one year, I was 



312 NORWAY, DENMARK, AND GERMANY. 

told. These poor women had been working hard to sup- 
port themselves by teaching and by embroidering. Katrina 
brought down, to exhibit to me, a dog's head, embroidered 
in the finest possible silks, — silks that made a hair-stroke 
like a fine pen ; it was a marvellously ingenious thing, but 
no more interesting than the "Lord's Prayer written in 
the circumference of two inches," or an}' of that class of 
marvels. 

" Dey take dese to America," Katrina said. "Did you 
ever see anyting like clem dere ? De} T get thirty kroner for 
one of dem dogs. It is chust like live dog." 

After we returned, Katrina disappeared again on one of 
her mysterious expeditions, whose returns were usually of 
great interest to me. This time the}' brought to both of us 
disappointment. Coming in with a radiant face, and the 
usual little newspaper bundle in her hand, she cried out, 
" Now I got }"ou de bestest ting 3'et," and held out her 
treasures, — a pint of small berries, a little larger than 
whortleberries, and as black and shining as jet. " Dis is 
de bestest beny in all Norwa}'," she exclaimed, whipping 
one into her own mouth ; " see if 3-011 like." 

I incautiously took three or four at once. Not since the 
days of old-fashioned Dover's and James's powders have I 
ever tasted a more nauseous combination of flavors than 
resided in those glittering black berries. 

"You not like dem berries?" cried poor Katrina, in 
dismay at my disgust, raising her voice and its inflections 
at every syllable. ' ' You not like dem berries ? I never 
hear of nobody not liking dem berries. Dey is bestest we 
got ! An3' way, I eat dem myself," she added philosophi- 
cally, and retreated crestfallen to her room, where I heard 
her smacking her lips over them for half an hour. I believe 
she ate the whole at a sitting. They must have been a 
variety of black currant, and exclusively intended b3 r Nature 
for medicinal purposes ; but Katrina came out hearty and 
well as ever the next day, after having swallowed some 
twelve or sixteen ounces of them. 

B} T wa3 T of atoning for her mishap with the berries, she 
ran out early the next morning and bought a little packet 
of odds and ends of strong-scented leaves and dust of 
several kinds, and, coming up behind nvj* chair, held it 
close under my nose, with, — 



THE KATRINA SAGA. 313 

"Ain't dat nice smell? Ain't dat better as dem berries? 
Oh, I tink I never stop laughing ven I am at home ven I 
tink how you eat dem berries. Dey are de bestest berries 
we got." 

On my approving the scent, she seemed much pleased, 
and laid the little packet on my table, remarking that I 
could "chust smell it ven I liked." She added that in 
the winter-time they kept it in all Norwegian houses, and 
strewed it on the stoves when they were hot, and it 
"smelled beautiful." They called it "king's smoke," she 
said, and nobody would be without it. 

It is easy to see why the Norwegians, from the king 
down, must need some such device as this to make tol- 
erable the air in their stove-heated rooms in winter. It 
was appalling to look at their four and five storied stoves, 
and think how scorched the air must be by such a mass of 
heated iron. The average Norwegian stove is as high as 
the door of the room, or even higher. It is built up of 
sections of square-cornered hollow iron pipe, somewhat as 
we build card-houses ; back and forth, forward and back, 
up and across, through these hollow blocks of cast-iron, 
goes the heated air. It takes hours to get the tower 
heated from bottom to top ; but once it is heated there is a 
radiating mass of burnt iron, with which it must be terrible 
to be shut up. The open spaces between the cross sections 
must be very convenient for many purposes, — to keep all 
sorts of things hot ; and a man given to the habit of tip- 
ping back in his chair, and liking to sit with his feet higher 
than his head, could keep his favorite attitude and warm 
his feet at the same time, — a thing that could n't be done 
with any other sort of stove. 

One of my last clays in Christiania was spent on the 
island of Hovedoen, a short half-hour's row from the town. 
Here are the ruins of an old monastery, dating back to the 
first half of the twelfth century, and of priceless interest to 
antiquarians, who tell, inch b}' inch, among the old grass- 
grown stones, just where the abbot sat, and the monks 
prayed, and through which arch they walked at vespers. 
Bits of the old carved cornices are standing everywhere, 
leaning up against the moss-grown walls, which look much 
less old for being hoary with moss. One thing they had 
in the monastery of Hovedoen, — a well of ice-cold, spark- 



314 NORWAY, DENMARK, AND GERMANY. 

ling water, which might have consoled them for much lack 
of wine ; and if the limes and poplars and birches were 
half as beautiful in 1147 as they are now, the monks were 
to be envied, when a whole nunneryful of nuns took refuge 
on their island in the time of the first onslaught on con- 
vents. "What strolls under those trees ! There are sev- 
eral species of flowers growing there now which grow 
nowhere else in all the region about, and tradition says 
that these nuns planted them. The paths are edged with 
heather and thyme and bluebells, and that daintiest of 
little vetches, the golden 3-ellow, whose blossoms were 
well named by the devout sisters " Mary's golden shoes." 
As we rowed home at sunset over the amber and silver 
water, Katrina sang Norwegian songs ; her voice, though 
untrained and shrill, had sweet notes in it, and she sang 
with the same childlike heartiness and innocent exultation 
that she showed in everything else. " Old Norway " was 
the refrain of the song she liked most and sang best ; and 
more than one manly Norwegian voice joined in witli hers 
with good-will and fervor. 

At the botanical gardens a Victoria regia was on the 
point of blooming. Day after day I had driven out there 
to see it ; each day confident, each da}' disappointed. The 
professor, a quaint and learned old man, simple in speech 
and behavior, as all great scientific men are, glided about 
in a linen coat, his shears hanging in a big sheath on one 
side his belt, his pruning-knife on the other, and a big note- 
book in his breast-pocket. His life seemed to me one of 
the few ideal ones I had ever seen. His house stands on 
a high terrace in the garden, looking southward, over the 
city to the fjord. It is a long, low cottage, with dormer 
windows sunk deep in the red-tiled roof, shaded by two 
great horsechestnut trees, which are so old that clumps of 
grass have grown in their gnarled knots. Here he plants 
and watches and studies ; triumphs over the utmost rigors 
of the Norway climate, and points with pride to a dozen 
varieties of Indian corn thriving in his grounds. Tropical 
plants of all climes he has cajoled or coerced into living 
out-of-doors all winter in Norway. One large house full 
of begonias was his special pride ; tier after tier of the 
splendid velvet leaves, all shades of color in the blossoms : 
one could not have dreamed that the world held so many 



THE KATRINA SAGA. 315 

varieties* of begonia. He was amioj'ed by his Victoria 
regia's tardiness. There it la}*, lolling in its huge, lake, — 
in a sultry heated air which it was almost dangerous for 
human lungs to breathe. Its seven huge leaves spread 
out in round disks on which a child could stand safe. In 
the middle, just out of the water, rose the mysterious red 
bud. It was a plant he had himself raised in one year 
from seed ; and he felt towards it as to a child. 

" I cannot promise. I did think it should have opened 
this morning. It has lifted itself one inch since last 
night," he said. '-It is not my fault," he added apolo- 
getically, like a parent who cannot make a child obe} 7 . 
Then he showed me, by his clasped hands, how it opened ; 
in a series of spasmodic unclosings, as if by throes, at in- 
tervals of five or six minutes ; each unclosing revealing 
more and more of the petals, till at last, at the end of a 
half-hour, the whole snowy blossom is unfolded : one day 
open, then towards night, b}* a similar series of throe-like 
movements, it closes, and the next morning, between nine 
and eleven, opens again in the same way, but no longer 
white. In the night it has changed its color. One look, 
one taste, one day, of life has flushed it rose-red. As the 
old professor told me this tale, not new, but always won- 
derful and solemn, his face kindled with delight and awe. 
No astronomer reckoning the times and colors of a recur- 
ring planet could have had a vivider sense of the beauty 
and grandeur of its law. The last thing I did in Chris- 
tiania was to drive for the third time to see if this flower 
had unfolded. It had apparently made no movement for 
twenty-four hours. 

"I tought you not see dat flower," said Katrina, who 
had looked with some impatience on the repeated bootless 
journeys. " I tink it is hoombug. I tink it is all shtories." 

To me there was a half-omen in the flower's dela}*. 
Norway also had shown me only half its beaut}* ; I was 
going away wistful and unsatisfied. u You must have an- 
other Victoria next summer," I said to the quaint old pro- 
fessor, when I bade him good-by ; and as Katrina ran 
swiftly off the deck of the steamer, that I might not see 
any tears in her e}*es, bidding me farewell, I said also to 
her, " Next summer, Katrina. Study the Frithiof's Saga, 
and read me the rest of it next summer." 



316 NORWAY, DENMARK, AND GERMANY. 

I hope she will not study it so well as to improve too 
much in, her renderings. Could an}' good English be so 
good as this ? 

FRITHIOF AND INGEBORG. 

Two trees growed bold and silent: never before the north 
never seen such beauties ; they growed nicely in the garden. 

The one growed up with the strongth of the oak; and the 
stem was as the handle of the spear, but the crown shaked in 
the wind like the top on the helmet. 

But the other one growed like a rose, — like a rose when the 
winter just is going away; but the spring what stands in its 
buds still in dreams childly is smiling. 

The storm shall go round the world. In fight with the storm 
the oak will stand: the sun in the spring will glow on the 
heaven. Then the rose opens its ripe lips. 

So they growed in joy and play; and Frithiof was the young 
oak, but the rose in the green walley was named Ingeborg the 
Beauty. 

If you seen dem two in the daylight, you would think of 
Freya's dwelling, where many a little pair is swinging with 
yellow hair, and vings like roses. 

But if you saw dem in the moonlight, dancing easy around, 
you would tink to see an erl-king pair dancing among the 
wreaths of the walley. How he was glad — 

" Deui 's the nicest vairses, I tink." 

— how he was glad, how it was dear to him, when he got to 
write the first letter of her name, and afterwards to learn his 
Ingeborg, that was to Frithiof more than the king's honor. 

How nicely when with the little sail, ven they vent over the 
surface of the water, how happy with her little white hands 
she is clapping ven he turns the rudder. 

How far up it was hanging in the top of the tree, to the 
bird's-nest, he found up; sure was not either the eagle's nest, 
when she stand pointing down below. 

You could n't find a river, no matter how hard it was, with- 
out he could carry her over. It is so beautiful when the waves 
are roaring to be keeped fast in little white arms. 

The first flower brought up in the spring, the first strawberry 
that gets red, the first stem that golden bended down, he happy 
brought his Ingeborg. 

But the days of childhood goes quickly away. There stands 
a youth ; and in a while the hope, the brave, and the fire is 
standing in his face. There stands a maiden, with the bosom 
swelling. 



THE KATRINA SAGA. 317 

Very often Frithiof went out a-hunting. Such a hunting 
would' frighten many; without spear and sword the brave would 
fetch the bear: they were fighting breast to breast; and after 
the glory, in an awful state, the hunter went home with what 
he got. 

What girl wouldn't like to take that? 

" Ven he had been fighting that way, you see, without 
an} r sword or anyting." 

Then dear to the women is the fierce of a man. The strongth 
is wort the beauty, and they will fit well for another, as well as 
the helm fits the brain of an hero. 

But if he in the winter evening, with his soul fierce, by the 
fire's beam was reading of bright Walhalla, a song, a song of 
the gods — 

" Veil, dat 's the mans ; vat's the vomens? " 

"Goddesses?" 

"Veil, dat 'sit." 

— a song of the gods and goddesses' joy, he was tinking, Yellow 
is the hair of Freya. My Ingeborg — 

" Vat's a big field called when it is all over ripe?" 

"Yellow?" 

" No," — a shake of the head. 

— is like the fields when easy waves the summer wind a golden 
net round all the flower bundles. 

Iduna's bosom is rich, and beautiful it waves under the 
green satin. I know a twin satin wave in where light Alfs hid 
themself. 

And the eyes of Frigga are blue as the heavenly whole; still 
often I looked at two eyes under the vault of heaven : against 
dem are a spring day dark to look at. 

How can it be they praise Gerda's white cheeks, and the new- 
come snow in the north light beam? 

T looked at cheeks, the snow mountain's beam ain't so beau- 
tiful in the red of the morning. 

I know a heart as soft as Nanna's, if not so much spoken of. 

Well praised of the skalds you, Nanna's happy Balder! 

Oh, that I as you could die missed of the soft and honest 
maiden, your Nanna like. I should glad go down to Hell's the 
dark kingdom. 

But the king's daughter sat and sung a hero song, and 
weaved glad into the stuff all things the hero have done, the 
blue sea, the green walley, and rock-rifts. 



318 NORWAY, DENMARK, AND GERMANY. 
There growed out in snow-white vool the shining shields of — 
" Ain't there a word 3-011 say spinned? " 

— spinned gold; red as the lightning flew the lances of the war, 
and stiff of silver was every armor. 

But as she quickly is weaving and nicely, she gets the heroes 
Frithiofs shape, and as she comes farther into the weave, she 
gets red, but still she sees them with joy. 

But Frithiof did cut in walley and field many an I and F in 
the bark of — 

"He cut all round. Wherever he come, he cut them 
two." 

— the trees. These Runes is healed with happy and joy, just 
like the young hearts together. 

When the daylight stands in its emerald — 

Here we had a long halt, Katrina insisting on saying 
" smaragd," and declaring that that was an English word ; 
she had seen it often, and " it could not be pronounced in 
any other way;" she had seen it in "Lady Montaig in 
Turkey," — "she had loads of smaragds and all such 
things." Her contrition, when she discovered her mis- 
take, was inimitable. 

She had read this account of " Lady Montagu in Tur- 
key," in her "Hundred Lessons," at school so many 
times she knew it by heart, which she proceeded to prove 
by long quotations. 

— and the king of the light with the golden hair, and the mens, 
is busy wandering, then they did only think one on each other. 

When the night is standing in its emerald, and the mother 
of the sleep with dark hair and all are silent, and the stars are 
wandering, den they only is dreaming of each other. 

Thou Earth dat fix thee [or gets new] every spring, and is 
braiding the flowers into your hair, the beautifullest of them, 
give me friendly, for a wreath to reward Frithiof. 

Thou Ocean, dat in thy dark room has pearls in thousands, 
give me the best, the beautifullest, and the beautifullest neck I 
will bind them to. 

Thou button on Odin's king-chair, Thou World's Eye Golden 
Sun, if you were mine, your shining round I would give Fri- 
thiof as shield. 

Thou lantern in the All-Father's Home, the moon with the 
pale torch, if you were mine, I would give it as an emerald for 
my beautiful hand-maiden. 



THE KATR1NA SAGA. 319 

Then Hilding said, " Foster son, 
Your love would n't be any good to you. 
Different lots Noma gives out. 
That maiden is daughter to King Bele. 
To Odin hisself in the Star-place 

Mounts her family. 
You, de son of Thorstein peasant, 
Must give way, because like thrives best with like." 

" He have to leave because he vas poor, you see." 

But Frithiof smiled: " Very easy 

My arm will win me king's race. 

The king of the wood fall, 

The king of the forest fall in spite of claw and howl; 

His race I inherit with the Skin." 

The free-born man would n't move, 
Because the world belongs to the free. 
Easy, courage can reconcile fortune, 
And de Hope carries a king's crown. 

Most noble is all Strongth. Because Thor — 

" He was fader of all clem oder gods, you see." 

The ancestor lives in Thrudvang, 

He weighs not de burden, but de wort; 

" Look now, all dese be strange words." 

A mighty wooer is also the Sword. 

I will fight for my young bride, 
If it so were, vid de God of de Tunder; 
Grow safe, grow happy, my white lily, 
Our covenant are fast as the Noma's will. 

This is her translation of the last stanzas of the account 
of Ingeborg's marriage to Frithiof : — 

In come Ingeborg in hermine sack, and bright jewels, fol- 
lowed of a crowd of maids like de stars wid de moon. Wid de 
tears in de beautiful eyes she fall to her brother's heart; but he 
lead the dear sister up to Frithiof 's noble breast; and over the 
God's altar she reach-ched her hand to de childhood's friend, to 
her heart's beloved. 

A few days before I left Christiania, Katrina had come 
shyly up to my table, one evening, and tossed down on it 
a paper, saying, — 



820 NORWAY, DENMARK, AND GERMANY. 

" Dere is anoder. Dis one is for you." 

On looking at it, I found it contained four stanzas of 
Norwegian verse, in which my name occurred often. No 
persuasions I could bring to bear on her would induce her 
to translate it. She only laughed, said she could not, and 
that some of my Norwegian friends must read it to me. 
She read it aloud in the Norwegian, and to m}' ignorant 
ear the lines had a rhythmical and musical sound. She 
herself was pleased with it. " It is nice song, dat song," 
she said ; but turn it into English for me she would not. 
Each clay, however, she asked if I had had it translated, 
and finding on the last day that I had not, she darted into I 
her room, shut the door, and in the course of two hours 
came out, saying, "I got it part done; but dey tell 30U i 
better, as I tell you." 

The truth was, the tribute was so flattering, she pre- 
ferred it should come to me second hand. She shrank 
from saying directly, in open speech, all that it had 
pleased her affectionate heart to sa} T in the verses. Three 
of the stanzas I give exactly as she wrote them. The 
rest is a secret between Katrina and me. 

THANKS. 

The fluty command me to honor 

You, who with me 
Were that kind I set her beside 
My parents. Like a sunbeamed picture 
For my look, you painted stands. 
My wishes here translated 
With you to Colorado go. 

Happy days ! oh, happy memories 

Be with me on the life's way. 
Let me still after a while find or meet 
You energisk. I would n't forget. 

God, be thou a true guide 
Tor her over the big ocean ; 

Keep away from her all torments 

That she happy may reach her home. 

Take my thanks and my farewell 

As remembrance along with you home, 
Though a stranger I am placed 

And as servant for you, 
The heaven's best reward I pray down 
For all you did to me. 

Good luck and honor 

Be with you till you die. 



THE KATRINA SAGA. 321 

The last verse seems to me to sound far better in Nor- 
wegian than in English, and is it not more fitting to end 
the Katrina Saga in a few of her words in her own 
tongue ? 

" Modtag Takken og Farvellet 
Som Erindring med dem hjera, 
Sjont som Fremmed jeg er stillet 
Og sora Tjener kun for dem. 
Himlen's rige Lon nedbeder 
Jeg for Lidet og for Stort, 
Mrs. Jackson, Held og Hasder 
Folge dem til Doden's Port." 



21 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 

I. 

Dear People, — We had a fine send-off from Chris- 
tiania. The landlord of the Scandinavie sent up to know 
if we would do him the honor to drive clown to the steamer 
in his private carriage. Katrina delivered the message 
with exultant eyes. "You see," she said, "he likes to 
show dat he do not every clay get such in cle house." We 
sent word back that we should consider ourselves most 
honored ; and so when we went downstairs, there stood 
a fine landau open, with bouquets lying on the seats, and 
a driver in livery ; and the landlord himself in the door- 
wa} 7 , and the landlord's wife, who had sent us the bouquets, 
Katrina said, peering from behind the curtains. When 
she saw Katrina pointing her out, she threw the curtains 
back and appeared full in view, smiling and waving her 
hand ; we lifted up our bouquets, and waved them to. her, 
and smiled our thanks. Katrina sprang up, with my cloak 
on her arm, to the coachman's seat. " I tink I go down 
too," she exclaimed, "I see you all safe;" and so we 
drove off, with as much smiling and bowing and "fare- 
welling" as if we had been cousins and aunts of eveiy- 
body in the Scandinavie. How we did hate to leave our 
great corner rooms, with five windows in them, the fifth 
window being across the corner, which is not a right-angled 
corner, but like a huge bay-window ! This utilization of 
the corner is a very noticeable feature in the streets of 
Christiania. In the greater part of the best houses the 
corner is cut off in this way ; the door into the room being 
across the opposite corner (also cut off), thus making 
a six-sided room. The improvement in the street-fronts 
of handsome blocks of buildings made by this shape 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 323 

instead of the usual rectangular corner is greater than 
would be supposed, and the rooms made in this fashion 
are delightfully bright, airy, and out of the common. 

I did not quite fancy sailing in a steamer named " Bal- 
der," — one gets superstitious in Norway, — but I think we 
had flowers enough on board to have saved us if Loki her- 
self had wished us ill. Nothing in all Norway is more 
striking than the Norwegian's love of flowers. It is no 
exaggeration to sa} T that one does not see a house without 
flowers in the window. In the better houses every win- 
dow in the front, even up to the little four-paned window 
in the gable, has its row of flower-pots ; and even in the 
ver} T poorest hovels there will be at least one window 
flower-filled. This general love and culture of flowers 
makes it the most natural thing in the world for the Nor- 
wegian, when he travels, to be carrying along something 
in the shape of a plant. He is either taking it home or 
carrying it as a gift to some one he is going to visit. I 
have not yeX, been on a steamboat where I did not see at 
least a dozen potted plants, of one sort or another, being 
carefully carried along, as hand luggage, by men or women ; 
and as for bouquets, they are almost as common as hats and 
bonnets. Of the potted plants, five out of seven will be 
green myrtles, and usually the narrow leaf. There is a 
reason for this, — the Norwegian bride, of the better class, 
wears always a chaplet of green myrtle, and has her white 
veil trimmed with little knots of it from top to bottom. 
The chaplet is made in front somewhat after the shape of 
the high gilded crowns worn b} T the peasant brides ; but 
at the back it is simply a narrow wreath confining the veil. 
After I knew this, 1 looked with more interest at the pots 
of myrtle I met everywhere, journeying about from place 
to place ; and I observed, after this, what I had not before 
noticed, that every house had at least one pot of myrtle 
in its windows. 

There were a dozen different varieties of carnations in 
our bouquets. The first thing I saw as we moved off from 
the wharf was a shabbily dressed little girl with a big 
bouquet entirely of carnations, in which there must have 
been many more. In a few minutes a woman, still shab- 
bier than the little girl, came down into the cabin with a 
great wooden box of the sort that Norwegian women carry 



324 NORWAY, DENMARK, AND GERMANY. 

eve ly thing in, from potatoes np to their church fineries : 
it is an oval box with a little peak at each end like a 
squirrel cage ; the top, which has a hole in the middle, fits 
down around these peaks so tight that the box is safely 
lifted by this handle ; and, as I saj^, everything that a 
Norwegian woman wants to cany, she puts into her 
tine (pronounced, " teener"). Some of them are painted 
in ga}* colors ; others are left plain. Setting down the 
box, she opened it, and proceeded to sprinkle with water 
one of the most beautiful wreaths I have ever seen, • — white 
lilies, roses, and green n^-rtle. I think it came from a 
wedding ; but as she knew no English, and I no Norwe- 
gian, I could not find out. Two nights and a day she 
was going to carry it, however, and she sprinkled it several 
times a day. An hour later, when I went down into the 
cabin, there was a rov^ of bouquets filling the table under 
the looking-glass ; five pots of flowers standing on the floor, 
and in several staterooms whose doors were standing open 
I saw still more of both bouquets and plants. This is only 
a common illustration of the universal custom. It is a 
beautiful one, and in thorough keeping with the affec- 
tionate simplicity of the Norwegian character. 

Christiania looked beautiful as we sailed away. It lies 
in the hollow, or rather on the shore rim of the fine amphi- 
theatre of hills which makes the head of the Christiania 
Fjord. Fjord is a much more picturesque word than bay ; 
and I suppose when a ba} T travels up into the heart of a 
country scores of miles, slips under several narrow strips 
of land one after the other, making lakes between them, 
it is entitled to be called something more than plain bay ; 
but I wish it had been a word easier to pronounce. I 
never could say "fjord," when I read the word in 
America ; and all that I have gained on the pronouncing 
of it by coming to Norwa}' is to become still more dis- 
tinctly aware that I always pronounce it wrong. I do not 
think Cadmus ever intended that j should be y, or that 
one should be called on to pronounce f before it. 

The Christiania Fjord has nothing of grandeur about 
it, like the wilder fjords on the west coast of Norway. 
It is smiling and gracious, with beautifully rounded and 
interlocking hills, — intervals of pine woods, with green 
meadows and fields, pretty villages and hamlets, farm- 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 325 

houses and country-seats, and islands unnumbered, which 
deceive the eye continually, seeming to be themselves the 
shore. We left Christiania at two o'clock ; at that hour 
the light on a Norwa3 r .summer day is like high noon in 
other parts of the world, — in fact, it's noon till four 
o'clock in the afternoon, and then it is afternoon till ten, 
and then a good, long, very light twilight to go to bed by 
at eleven or twelve, and if you want to get up again at 
three o'clock in the morning you can wake without any 
trouble, for it is broad daylight: all of which is funny for 
once or twice, or perhaps for ten times, but not for very long. 
It was not till four or Bve o'clock that we began to see 
the full beauty of the fjord ; then the sun had gone far 
enough over to cast a shadow, — soften all the forest tops 
on the west side, and cast shadows on the east side. The 
little oases of bright green farm- lands, with their clusters 
of houses, seemed to sink deeper and deeper into their dark 
pine-tree settings, — the fjord grew wider and wider, and 
was as smooth as a lake : now and then we drew up by a 
little village and half stopped, — it seemed no more than 
that, — and somebody would climb on or off the steamer 
by little cockles of boats that bobbed alongside. Some- 
times we came to' a full stop, and lay several minutes at 
a wharf, loading or unloading bags of grain. I think 
we took on just as many as we took off,' — like a game 
of bean-bags between the villages. The sailors carried 
them off and on their backs, one set standing still in 
their places to lift the bags up on their comrades' backs ; 
they lifted with a will, and then folded their arms and 
waited till the bag-carriers came back to be loaded up 
again. If I could have spoken Norwegian, I should have 
asked whether those sets of men took turn and turn about, 
or whether one set always lifted up the loads and the others 
lugged them, — probably the latter. That's the way it is 
in life ; but I never saw a more striking example of it than 
in the picture these sailors made standing with folded 
arms doing nothing, waiting till their fellows came back 
again to be loaded down like beasts of burden. It was 
at " Moss " we saw this, — a prett} r name for a little town 
with a handful of gay-colored houses, red, yellow, and 
white, set in green fields and woods. Women came on 
board here with trays of apples and pears to sell, — little 



326 NORWAY, DENMARK, AND GERMANY. 

wizened pears red high up on one side, like some old 
spinsters' cheeks in New England. Children came too, with 
cherries tied up in bunches of about ten to a bunch ; they 
looked dear, but it was only a few hundredths of a quarter 
of a dollar that they cost. Since I have found out that 
a kroner is only about twenty-seven cents, and that it takes 
one hundred ore to make a kroner, all the things that 
cost only a few ore seem to me so ridiculously cheap as 
not to be worth talking about. These children with the 
cherries were all barefoot, and they were so slry that they 
curled and mauled their little brown toes all the time they 
were selling their cherries, just as children one shade less 
shy twist and untwist their lingers. 

We left Moss by a short cut, not overland exactly, 
but next door to it, — through land. The first thing we 
knew we were sailing through a bridge right into the 
town, in a narrow canal, — we could have thrown an apple 
into the windows of some of the houses as we glided by ; 
then in a few moments out we were again into the broad 
open fjord. 

At six o'clock we went clown to our first Danish supper. 
The "Balder" is a Danish boat, and sailed by a Danish 
captain, and conducted on Danish methods ; and they 
pleased us greatly. The ordinary Norwegian supper is a 
mongrel meal of nobody knows how many kinds of sausage, 
raw ham, raw smoked salmon, sardines, and all varie- 
ties of cheese. The Danish we found much better, having 
the addition of hot fish, and cutlets, and the delicious 
Danish butter. One good result of Denmark's lying low, 
she gets splendid pasturage for her cows, and makes a 
delicious butter, which brings the highest prices in the 
English and other markets. 

When we came up from supper we found ourselves 
in a vast open sea ; dim shores to be seen in the east 
and west, — in the east pink and gray, in the west dark 
with woods. The setting sun was sinking behind them, 
and its yellow light etched every tree-top on the clear sky. 
Here and there a sail gleamed in the sun. or stood out white 
in the farther horizon. A pink halo slowly spread around 
the whole outer circumference of the water ; and while we 
were looking at this, all of a sudden we were not in an open 
sea at all, but in among islands again, and slowly coming to 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 327 

a stop between two stretches of lovely shore, — big solid 
green fields like America's on one side, and a low prom- 
ontory of mossy rocks on the other. A handful of houses, 
with one large and conspicuous one in the centre, stood 
between the green fields and the shore. A sign was 
printed on this house in big letters ; and as I was trying 
to spell it out, a polite Norwegian at my elbow said, 
" Shodcty factory! We make shoddy there; we call it 
so after the English," bowing flatteringly as if it were a 
compliment to the English. Kradsidd is Norwegian for 
shodcly, and sounds worlds more respectable, I am sure. 

The roof of this shoddy factory had four dormer win- 
dows in it, with their tiled roofs running up full width to 
the ridge-pole, which gave the roof the drollest expression 
of being laid in box-plaits. I wish somebod}' would make 
a series of photographs of roofs in Norway and Denmark. 
The} T are the most picturesque part of the scener}- ; and as 
for their " sky-line," it is the very poetry of etching. I 
thought I had seen the perfection of the beauty of irregu- 
larity in the sky-line in Edinburgh ; but Edinburgh roofs 
are monotonous and straight in comparison with the hud- 
dling of corners and angles in Scandinavian gables and 
ridges and chimneys and attics. Add to this freak}- and 
fantastic and shifting shape the beaut}^ of color and of 
fine regularity of small curves in the red tile, and }ou have 
got as it were a mid-air world of beaut} T by itself. As I 
was studying out the points where these box-plaited dor- 
mer windows set into their roof, the same polite Norwe- 
gian voice said to a friend by his side, "I have read it 
over twenty-five ones." He pronounced the word read as 
for the present indicative, which made his adverbs of time 
at the end still droller. Really one of the great pleasures 
of foreign travel is the English one hears spoken ; and it 
is a pleasure for which we no doubt render a full equiva- 
lent in turn when we try speaking in an} T tongue except 
our own. But it is hard to conceive of any intelligible 
English French or German being so droll as German or 
French English can be and yet be perfectly intelligible. 
Polite creatures that the}' all are, never to smile when we 
speak their language ! 

As the sun sank, the rosy horizon-halo gathered itself up 
and floated about in pink fleeces ; the sky turned pale 



328 NORWAY, DENMARK, AND GERMANY. 

green, like the sky before dawn. Latitude plays strange 
pranks with sunsets aDd sunrises. Norway, I think, must 
be the only place in the world where 30U could mistake 
one for the other ; but it is literally true that in Norway it 
would be very easy to do so if you happened not to know 
which end of the day it was. 

When we went down into our staterooms sorrow awaited 
us. To the eye the staterooms had been most alluring. 
One and all, we had exclaimed that never had we seen so 
fine staterooms in a Norwegian steamboat. All the time 
we were undressing we e}*ed with complacency the two 
fine red sofas, on one of which we were to sleep. 
Strangely enough, no one of us observed the shape of 
the sofa, or thought to try the consistency of it. Our 
experiences, therefore, were nearly simultaneous, and 
unanimous to a degree, as we discovered afterwards on 
comparing notes. The first thing -we did on lying down 
on our bed was to roll off it. Then we got up and on 
again, and tried to get farther back on it. As it was only 
about the width of a good-sized pocket-handkerchief, and 
rounded up in the middle, this proved to be impossible. 
Then we got up and tried to pull it out from the wall. Vain ! 
It was upholstered to the board as immovable as the stack- 
pipe of the boat. Then we tried once more to adjust our- 
selves to it. Presently we discovered that it was not only 
narrow and rounding, but harder than it would have 
seemed possible that anything in shape of tufted uphol- 
stered velvet could be. We began to ache in spots ; the 
ache spread : we ached all over ; we could neither toss, twist, 
nor turn on the summit of this narrow tumulus. Misery 
set in ; indignation and restlessness followed ; seasickness, 
in addition, seemed for once a trifle. The most indefati- 
gable member of the party, being also the most fatigued, 
succeeded at last in procuring a half-dozen small square 
pillows, — one shade less hard than the sofa, she thought 
when she first la} T down on them, but long before morning 
she began to wonder whether they were not even harder. 
Such a night lingers long in one's memory ; it was a clos- 
ing chapter to our experience of Norwegian beds, — a fit- 
ting climax, if anything so small could be properly called a 
climax. How it has ever come about that the Norwegian 
notion of a bed should be so restricted, I am at a loss 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 329 

to imagine. They are simply child's cribs, — no more ; 
as short as narrow, and in man}* instances so narrow 
that it is impossible to turn over quickly in them without 
danger. I have again and again been suddenly waked, 
finding myself just going over the edge. The making of 
them is as queer as the size. A sort of bulkhead small 
mattress is slipped in under the head, lifting it up at an 
angle admirably suited to an asthmatic patient who can't 
breathe lying down, or to a small boy who likes to coast 
down-hill in his bed of a morning. The single pillow is 
placed on this ; the short, narrow sheet flung loosely OA*er 
it ; blanket, ditto ; coverlet, ditto — it may or may not 
be straight or smooth. The whole expression of the bed 
is as if it had been just hastily smoothed up temporarily 
till there should be time enough to make it. In perfect 
good faith I sent for a chambermaid one night, in the early 
days of my Norway journey, and made signs to her that I 
would like to have nry bed made, when the poor thing had 
alread}* made it to the very best of her ability, and en- 
tirely in keeping with the customs of her county. 

It is very needless to say that we all were up early the 
next morning ; and there was something ludicrous enough 
in the tone in which each inquired eagerly of each, 
"Did you ever know such beds?" At ten we were an- 
chored off the little town of Frederikssund ; and here the 
boat la}* five mortal hours, doing nothing but unloading 
and taking on bags of bran. 

Another big steamer was lying alongside, doing the same 
thing. This was our first glimpse of Denmark. Very flat 
it looked, — just out of water, and no more, — like Holland. 
The sailors who were carrying the bags of bran wore queer 
pointed hoods on their heads, with long, tail-like pieces com- 
ing down behind, which made them look like elves, — at least 
it did for the first hour ; after that the}* no longer looked 
queer. If we had gone on shore, we could have seen the 
Royal Estate of Iaegerspriis, which has belonged to kings 
of Denmark ever since the year 1300, and has a fine park, 
and a house decorated by sculptures by AVieclewelt, — a 
Danish sculptor of the last century, — and an old sepulchre 
which dates back to the stone age, and, best of all, a great 
old oak. called the King's Oak, which is the largest in Den- 
mark, and dates back farther than anybody will know till 



330 NORWAY, DENMARK, AND GERMANY. 

it dies. A tree is the only living thing which can keep the 
secret of its own age, is it not? Nobody can tell within a 
hundred or two of } T ears anything about it so long as the 
tree can hold its head up. The circumference of this tree 
is said to be f oily-two feet four feet from the ground, — 
a pretty respectable tree, considering the size of Denmark 
itself. Now we begin to see where the old Vikings got 
the oak to build their ships. The} 7 carried it up from 
Denmark, which must have been in those days a great 
forest of beech and oak to have kept so many till now. It 
is only a few miles from Frederikssund, also, to Havelse, 
which is celebrated for its "kitchen middings," — the 
archaeological name for kitchen refuse which got buried 
up hundreds of years ago. Even potato parings become 
highly important if you keep them long enough ! They 
will at least establish the fact that somebody ate potatoes 
at that date ; and all things hang together so in this queer 
world that there is no telling how much any one fact may 
prove or disprove. For myself, I don't care so much for 
what the}' ate in those days as for what they wore, — next 
to what they did in the way of fighting and making love. 
I saw the other da} T , in Christiania, a whole trayful of 
things which were taken from a burial mound opened in 
Norway last spring. A Viking had been buried there in 
his ship. The hull was entire, and I have stood in it ; but 
not even the old blackened hull, nor the oars, stirred me 
so much as the ornaments he and his horses had worn, — 
the bosses of the shields, and queer little carved bits of 
iron and silver which had held the harnesses together ; one 
exquisitely wrought horse's head, only about two inches 
long, which must have been a beautiful ornament wherever 
it was placed. If there had been a fish-bone found left from 
his last dinner or from the funeral feast which the relations 
had at his wake, I should not have cared half so much for 
it. But tastes differ. 

An afternoon more of sailing and another awful night 
on the red velvet ridges, and we came to Copenhagen 
itself, at five of the morning. At four we had thought it 
must be near, — long strips of green shore, with trees and 
houses, — so flat that it looked narrow, and seemed to 
unroll like a ribbon as we sailed b} r ; but when we slipped 
into the harbor we saw the difference, — wharves and 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 331 

crowds of masts and warehouses, just like any other city, 
and the same tiresome farce of making believe examine 
your luggage. I should respect customs and custom- 
houses more if they did as they say they will do. As it 
is, to smuggle seems to me the easiest thing in the world as 
well as the most alluring. I have never smuggled because 
I have never had the means necessaiy to do it ; but I could 
have smuggled thousands of dollars worth of goods, if I 
had had them, through every custom-house 1 have ever 
seen. A commissionnaire with a shining beaver hat stood 
on the shore to meet us, we having been passed on with 
" recommendations" from the kindly people of the Scan- 
diuavie in Christiania to the King of Denmark Hotel 
people in Copenhagen. Nothing is so comfortable in trav- 
elling as to be waited for 03- your landlord. The difference 
between arriving unlooked for and arriving as an expected 
customer is about like the difference between arriving at the 
house of a friend and arriving at that of an enemy. The 
commissionaire had that pathetic air of having seen better 
days which is so universal in his class. One would think 
that the last vocation in the world which a "decayed" 
gentleman would choose would be that of showing other 
gentlemen their wa}' about cities ; it is only to be explained 
by the same morbid liking to be tantalized which makes 
hungiy beggars stand by the hour with their noses against 
the outside of the panes of a pastry-cook's window, — 
which the}' all do, if they can ! Spite of our flaming 
''recommendations," which had preceded us from our 
last emploj'er, the landlord of the Scanclinavie, satisfac- 
tory rooms were not awaiting us. Sara Bernhardt was 
in town, and every hotel was crowded with people who had 
come for a night or two to see and hear her. It is won- 
derful how much room a person of her sort can take up in 
a city ; and if the}' add, as she does, the aroma of a distinct 
and avowed disreputability, they take up twice as much 
room ! Since her visit to England I wonder she does not 
add to her open avowal of disregard of all the laws and 
moralities which decent people hold in esteem, " By per- 
mission of the Queen," or " To the Royal Family." 

But this is not telling you about Copenhagen. It was 
five o'clock when we landed, and before seven I had driven 
with the commissionnaire to each one of the four first-class 



332 NORWAY, DENMARK, AND GERMANY. 

hotels in Copenhagen in search of sunny rooms. None 
to be had ! All four of the hotels were fully occupied, 
as I said, by Sara Bernhardt in some shape or other. 
So we made the best of the best we could do, — break- 
fasted, slept, lunched, and at two o'clock were ready 
to begin to see Copenhagen. At first we were disap- 
pointed, as in Christiania, by its modern look. It is a 
dreadful pity that old cities will burn down and be rebuilt, 
and that all cities must have such a monotony of repeti- 
tions of blocks of houses. By the end of another century 
there won't be an old city left anywhere in the world. 
There are acres of blocks of houses in Copenhagen to-da}' 
that might have been built anywhere else, and fit in any- 
where else just as well as here. When you look at them a 
little more closeh r , you see that there are bits of terra-cotta 
work in friezes and pilasters and brackets here and there, 
which would not have been done anywhere except in the 
home of Thorwaldsen. If he had done nothing else for 
art than to stamp a refined and graceful expression on all 
the minor architectural decorations of his native city, that 
would have been worth while. There is not an architec- 
tural monstrosit}' in the city, — not one ; and man} T of the 
buildings have an excellent tone of quiet, conventional 
decoration which is pleasing to the eye. The brick-work 
particularly is well clone ; and simple variations of design 
are effectively used. You see often recurring over door- 
ways and windows terra-cotta reproductions of some of 
Thorwaldsen's popular figures ; and they are never marred 
by anything fantastic or bizarre in cornice or moulding 
above or around them. Among the most noticeable of the 
modern blocks are some built for the dwellings of poor peo- 
ple. They are in short streets leading to the Reservoir, and 
having therefore a good sweep of air through them. They 
are but two stories and a half high, pale yellow brick, 
neatty finished ; and each house has a tiny dooryard filled 
with flowers. There are three tenements to a house, each 
having three rooms. The expression of these rows of gay 
little yellow houses with red roofs and flower-filled door- 
yards and windows, and each doorway bearing its two or 
three signs of trade or artisanry, was enough to do one's 
heart good. The rents are low, bringing the tenements 
within easy reach of poor people's purses. Yet there is 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 383 

evidently an obligation — a certain sort of social standard 
— involved in the neighborhood which will keep it always 
from squalor or untidiness. I doubt if anybody would dare 
to live in those rows and not have flowers in his front yard 
and windows. For myself, I would far rather live in one 
of these little houses than in either of the four great pal- 
aces which make the Royal Square, Amalienborg, and look 
as much like great penitentiaries as like anything else, 
— high, bulk}', unadorned gray piles, flat and straight walls, 
and tiresome, dingy windows, and the pavements up to 
their door-sills. They may be splendid the other side the 
walls, — probably are ; but they are dreary objects to look 
at as you come home of an evening. The horse-cars are 
the most unique thing in the modern parts of Copenhagen. 
How two horses can draw them I don't see : but they do ; 
and if two horses can draw two-story horse-cars, wiry don't 
we have them in America, and save such overcrowding? 
The horse-cars here not only have a double row of seats 
on top as they have in London, but they have a roof over 
those seats, which nearly doubles the apparent height. 
As they come towards you the}' look like a great square- 
cornered boat, with a long pilot-house on top. Of course 
the}' carry just double the number. Women never ride 
on the top ; but men do not mind going upstairs outside a 
horse-car and sitting in mid-air above the heads of the 
crowd ; and if two horses really are able to draw so many, 
it is a gain. 

The one splendid sight in Copenhagen is its great 
dragon spire. This, one could stand and gaze at by 
the day. It is made of four dragons twisted together, 
heads down, tails up ; heads pointing to the four corners 
of the earth ; tails tapering and twisting, and twisting and 
tapering, till they taper out into an iron rod, which mounts 
still higher, with three gilded balls, and three wrought 
gilded circles on it, and finally ends in a huge gilded 
open-work weather-cock. This is on an old brick build- 
ing now used as the Exchange. It was built early in 
1600 by Christian IV., who seems to me to have done 
everything best worth doing that was ever done in Den- 
mark. His monogram ( (£, )' is forever cropping out on 
all the splendid old things. They are enlarging this Ex- 
change now ; and the new red brick and glaring white 



334 NORWAY, DENMARK, AND GERMANY. 

marble make a very unpleasing contrast to the old part 
of the building, although every effort has been made to 
copy the style of it exactly. It is long, and not high, 
the wall divided into spaces by carved pilasters between 
every two windows. Each pilaster begins as a man or a 
woman, — arms cut off at the shoulders, breasts and shoul- 
ders looking from a distance grotesquely like four humps. 
Where the legs should begin, the trunk ends in a great gar- 
goyle, — a lion's head, or a man's, or a bull's, — some 
grotesque, some beautiful ; below this, a conventional ta- 
pering support. In the pointed arch of each of the lower 
windows, also a carved head, no two of them alike, many 
of them beautiful. It is a grand old building, and one 
might study it and draw from it by the week. Passing 
this and crossing an arm of the sea, — which, bj* the way, 
you are perpetually doing in Copenhagen to go anywhere, 
the sea never having fully made up its mind to abandon 
the situation, — you come to another quaint old building in 
the suburbs, called Christianshaven. This is Vor Prei- 
ser's Church (Our Saviour's Church), built only fifty years 
later than the Exchange. It is a dark red brick church, 
with tiny fiat dormer windows let in and painted green on a 
shining tile roof ; a square belfry ; clock face painted red, 
black, and blue ; above this, a spire, first six-sided and 
then round, 288 feet high, covered with copper, which is 
bright green in places, and wound round and round bj* a 
glittering gilded staircase, which goes to the very top and 
ends under a huge gilt ball, under which twelve people 
can stand. This also is a fine kind of spire to have at 
hand at sunset ; it flames out like a ladder into the sky. 

One more old church has a way up, which is worth 
telling, though you can't see it from the outside. This 
is another of that same Christian IV. 's buildings, — 
it was built for an observatory, and used for that for two 
hundred years, but then joined to a church. The tower 
is round, 115 feet high, 48 feet in diameter, and made of 
two hollow cylinders. Between these is the way up, a 
winding stone road, smooth and broad ; and if 3-011 '11 
believe it, in 1716 that rascal Catherine of Russia actually 
drove up to the top of it in a coach and four, Peter going 
ahead on horseback. I walked up two of the turns of this 
stone roadway, and it made me dizz\ r to think what a 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 335 

clatter the five horses' hoofs must have made, with stone 
above, below, and around them ; and what a place it would 
have been to have knocked brains out if the horses had 
been frightened ! In this inside cylinder all the Univer- 
sity treasures were hidden when the English bombarded 
the city in 1807, and a very safe place it must have been. 

Opposite this church is still another of Christian IV.'s 
good works, — a large brick building put up for the ac- 
commodation of poor students at the University. One 
hundred poor students still have free lodgings in this 
building, but part of it looks as if its roof would fall in 
before long. 

Along the arms of the sea which stretch into or across 
the city — for some of them go wa} T through, come out, and 
join the outer waters again — are rows of high warehouses 
for grain, some seven and eight stories high. These have 
two-storied dormer windows, and terraced roofs, and a 
great beak like a ship's prow projecting from the ridge-pole 
of the dormer window. From this the grain is lowered 
and hoisted to and from the ships below. The ships lie 
crowded in these narrow arms, as in a harbor, and make 
picturesque. lanes of mast-tops through the city. On many 
of them are hung great strings of flounders dr}ing, fes- 
tooned on cords, from rope to rope, scores of them on a 
single sloop. The\ T look better than they smell ; you could 
not spare them out of the picture. 

The last thing we saw this afternoon was the statue of 
Hans Christian Andersen, which has just been put up in 
the great garden of Rosenborg Castle. This garden is 
generally called Kongen's Have ("The King's Garden"). 
It was planned by the good Christian, but contains now 
very little of his original design. Two splendid avenues 
of horse-chestnut trees and a couple of old bronze lions 
are all that is left as he saw it. It is a great place of 
resort for the middle classes with their children. A yearly 
tax of two kroners (about fifty cents) permits a family to 
take its children there every day ; and I am sure there 
must have been two hundred children in sight as I walked 
up the dark dense shaded avenue of linden trees at the 
upper end of which sits the beloved Hans Christian, with 
the sunlight falling on his head. "The children come 
here every day," said the commissionnaire ; " and that is 



336 NORWAY, DENMARK, AND GERMANY. 

the reason they put him here, so they can see him." He 
looked as if he also saw them. A more benignant, lifelike, 
tender look was never wrought in bronze. He sits, half 
wrapped in a cloak, his left hand holding a book carelessly 
on his knee, the right hand lifted as if in benediction of 
the children. The statue is raised a few feet on a plain 
pedestal, in a large oval bed of flowers : on one side the 
pedestal is carved the "Child and the Stork;" on the 
other, the group of ducks, with the " ugly" one in the mid- 
dle, — pictures that every little child will understand and 
love to see ; on the front is his name and a wreath of the 
bay he so well earned. Written above is, — 

" PUT UP BY THE DANISH PEOPLE ; " 

and I thought as I stood there that he was more to be 
envied than Christian IV. with his splendors of art and 
architecture, or than the whole Danish dynast}', with their 
priceless treasures and their jewelled orders. And so 
ended our first day in Copenhagen. 

The next morning/ Sunday, I drove out to church in the 
island of Amager, of which that paradoxical compound of 
truth and falsehood, Murray, saj T s : "It offers absolutely 
nothing of interest." I always find it veiy safe to go to 
places of which that is said. Amager is Copenhagen's 
vegetable garden. It is an island four miles square, and 
absolutely flat, — as flat as a piece of pasteboard ; in fact, 
while I was driving on it, it seemed to me to bear the 
same relation to flatness that the Irishman's gun did to re- 
coiling, — " If it recoiled at all, it recoiled forrards," — so 
it was a ver} 7 safe gun. If Amager is airy thing more or less 
than flat, it is bent inwards ; for actually when I looked 
off to the water it seemed to be higher than the land, and 
the ships looked as if they might any minute come sailing 
down among the cabbages. Early in the sixteenth cen- 
tury it was filled up by Dutch people ; and there they are 
to this day, wearing the same clothes and raising cab- 
bages just as they did three hundred 3~ears ago. To reach 
Amager from Copenhagen, 3'ou cross several arms of the 
sea and go through one or two suburbs called by different 
names ; but you would never know that you were not driv- 
ing in Copenhagen all the time until you come out into the 
greeneiy of Amager itself. It was good luck to go of a 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 337 

Sunday. All the Dutch dames were out and about in 
their best, driving in carts and walking, or sitting in their 
doorways. The women were ;i sights to behold." The 
poorer ones wore shirred sunbonnets on their heads, made 
of calico, coming out like an old poke-bonnet in front, and 
with full capes which set out at a fly-away angle behind. 
The}- seemed to have got the conception of the cape from 
the arms of their own windmills (of which, b} T the way, 
there are several on the island ; and their revolving arms 
acid to the island's expression of being insecure!}' at sea !). 
Next below the sunbonnet came a gay handkerchief crossed 
on the breast, over a black gown with tight sleeves ; a 
full bright blue apron, reaching half-wa}' round the waist 
and coming down to within two inches of the bottom of 
the overskirt, completed their rig. It was droller than it 
sounds. Some of them wore three-cornered handkerchiefs 
pinned outside their poke-bonnets, pinned under their 
chins, and the point falling over the neck behind. These 
were sometimes plain colors, sometimes white, embroi- 
ered or trimmed with lace. The men looked exactly 
like any countrymen in England or Scotland or America. 
If we have n't an international anj'thing else, we have 
very nearly an international costume for the masculine 
human creature ; and it is as ugly and unpicturesque a 
thing as malignitj' itself could devise. The better class of 
women wore a plain black bonnet, made in the same poke 
shape as the sunbonnets, but without an}' cape at all on the 
back, only a little full crown tucked in, and the fronts 
coming round very narrow in the back of the neck, and tied 
there with narrow black ribbons. Don't fancy these were 
the only strings that held the roof in its place, — not at all. 
Two very broad strings, of bright blue, or red, or purple, 
as it might be, came from somewhere high up inside the 
front, and tied under the chin in a huge bow, so that their 
faces looked as if they had first been tied up in broad rib- 
bon for the toothache, and then the huge bonnet put on out- 
side of all. Strangely enough, the effect on the faces was 
not ugly. Old faces were sheltered and softened, double 
chins and scragg}' necks were hid, and younger faces 
peered out prettily from under the scoop and among the 
folds of ribbon ; and the absolute plainness of the bon- 
net itself, having no trimming save a straight band across 

22 



338 NORWAY, DENMARK, AND GERMANY. 

the middle, gave the charm of simplicity to the outline, 
and vindicated the worth of that most emphatically when 
set side bj T side in the church pews with the modern bon- 
nets, — all bunches and bows, and angles and tilts of 
feathers and flowers and rubbish generally. 

The houses were all comfortable, and some of them very 
pretty. Low, long, chiefly of a light yellow straw, latticed 
off by dark lines of wood-work, some of them entirely mat- 
ted with ivy, like cottages in the English lake district, all 
of them with either red-tiled or thatched roofs, and the 
greater part surrounded 03- hedges. The thatched roofs 
were delightful. The thatch is held on and fastened down 
at the ridge-pole by long bits of crooked wood, one on 
each side, the two crossing and lapping at the ridge-pole 
and held together there by pins. The effect of a long, low 
roof set thick with these cross-pieces at the top is almost 
as if dozens of slender lishes were set there with forked tails 
up in the air ; and when half a dozen sparrows are flit- 
ting and alighting on these projecting points of board, the 
effect is of a still odder trimming. Some of the red-tiled 
roofs have a set pattern in white painted along the ridge- 
pole, corners, and eaves. These are very gay ; and some 
of the thatched roofs are grown thick with a dark olive- 
green moss, which in a cross sunlight is as fine a color as 
was ever wrought into an old tapestry, and looks more like 
ancient velvet. 

The church in Amager is new, brick, and ugly of ex- 
terior. But the inside is good ; the wood-work, choir, pul- 
pit, sounding-board, railings, pews, all carved in a simple 
conventional pattern, and painted dark-olive brown, re- 
lieved by claret and green, — in a combination borrowed 
no doubt from some old wood-work centuries back. In 
the centre a candelabra, hanging by a red cord, marked 
off b} T six gilded balls at intervals ; the candelabra itself 
being simply a great gilded ball, with the simplest possible 
candle-holders projecting from it. Two high candle-holders 
inside the railing had each three brass candlesticks in the 
shape of a bird, with his long tail curled under his feet 
to stand on, — a fantastic design, but singularly graceful, 
considering its absurdity. The minister wore a long black 
gown and high, full ruff, exactly like those we see in the 
pictures of the divines of the Reformation times. He had 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 339 

a fine and serious face, of oval contour ; therefore the ruff 
suited hint. On short necks and below round faces it is 
simply grotesque, and no more dignified than a turkey- 
cock's ruffled feathers. He preached with great fervor 
and warmth of manner ; but as I could not understand a 
word he said, I should have found the sermon long if I had 
not been very busy in studying the bonnets and faces, and 
choir of little girls in the gallery. More than half the con- 
gregation were in the ordinary modern dress, and would 
have passed unnoticed anywhere. All the men looked like 
well-to-do New England farmers, coloring and all ; for the 
blue-ej-ed, fair-haired type prevails. But the women who 
had had the sense and sensibility to stick to their own 
national clothes were as pretty as pictures, as their faces 
showed above the dark olive-brown pews, framed in their 
front porches of bonnets, — for that is really what they are 
like, the faces are so far back in them. Some were lined 
with bright lavender satin, full-puffed ; some with purple ; 
some with blue. The strings never matched the lining, 
but were of a violent contrast, — light blue in the purple, 
gay plaid in the lavender, and so on. The aprons were 
all of the same shade of vivid blue, — as blue as the sky, 
and darker. They were all shirred down about two inches 
below the waist ; some of them trimmed down the sides at 
the back with lace or velvet, but none of them on the 
bottom. One old woman who sat in front of me wore a 
conical and pointed cap of black velvet and plush, held 
on her head by broad gray silk springs, tied with a big 
bow under her chin, covering her ears and cheeks. The 
cap was shaped like a funnel carried out to a point, which 
projected far behind her, stiff and rigid : yet it was not 
an ungraceful thing on the head. These, I am told, are 
rarely seen now. 

When the sermon was done, the minister disappeared 
for a moment, and came back in gorgeous claret velvet and 
white robes, with a great gilt cross on his back. The 
candles on the altar were lighted, and the sacrament was 
administered to a dozen or more kneeling outside the rail- 
ing. This part of the ceremony seemed to me not very 
Lutheran ; but I suppose that is precisely the thing it was, 
— Luther-an, — one of the relics he kept when he threw 
overboard the rest of the superstitions. Before this 



340 NORWAY, DENMARK, AND GERMANY. 

ceremony the sexton came and unlocked the pew we occu- 
pied, and I discovered for the first time that I and the com- 
missionnaire had been all that time locked in. After church 
the sexton told us that there would be a baptismal service 
there in an hour, — eleven babies to be baptized. That 
was something not to be lost ; so I drove away for half an 
hour, went to a farm-house and begged milk, and then, 
after I had got my inch, asked for my habitual ell, — that is, 
to see the house. The woman was, like all housekeepers, 
full of apologies, but showed me her five rooms with good- 
will, — five in a row, all opening together, the kitchen in 
the middle, and the front door in the back yard by the hen- 
coop and water-barrel ! The kitchen was like the Nor- 
wegian farm-house kitchens, — a bare shed-like place, with 
a table, and wall-shelves, and a great stone platform with 
a funnel roof overhead ; sunken hollows to make the fire 
in ; no oven, no lids, no arrangement for doing anything 
except boiling or frying. A huge kettle of boiling por- 
ridge was standing over a few blazing sticks. Havre- 
mds c/rod — which is Norwegian, and Danish also, for 
oatmeal pudding — is half their living. All the bread they 
have they buy at the baker's. 

The other rooms were clean. Every one had in it a 
two-storied bed curtained with calico, neat corner cup- 
boards, and bureaus. There w r ere prints on the w r all, and 
a splendid brass coffee-pot and urn under pink mosquito 
netting. But the woman herself had no stockings on her 
feet, and her wooden shoes stood just outside the door. 

When we reached the church again, the babies were all 
there. A wail as of bleating lambs reached us at the very 
door. A strange custom in Denmark explained this bleating : 
the poor babies were in the hands of godmothers, and not 
their own mothers. The mothers do not go with their babies 
to the christening ; the fathers, godfathers, and godmothers 
go, — two godmothers and one godfather to each bab\\ 
The women and the babies sat together, and rocked and 
trotted and shook and dandled and screamed, in a per- 
fect Babel of motion and sound. Seven out of those eleven 
babies were crying at the top of their lungs. The twent} r - 
two godmothers looked as if the} 7 would go crazy. Never, 
no, never, did I see or hear such a scene ! The twenty-two 
fathers and godfathers sat together on the other side of the 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 341 

aisle, stolid and unconcerned. I tried to read in their faces 
which men owned the babies, but I could not. They all 
looked alike indifferent to the racket. Presently the sex- 
ton marshalled the women with their babies in a row 
outside the outer railing. He had in his hand a paper 
with the list of the poor little things' names on it, which he 
took round, and called the roll, apparently so as to make 
sure all was right. Then the minister came in, and went 
the round, saying something over each baby and making 
the sign of the cross on its head and breast. I thought he 
was through when he had once been round doing this ; but 
no, — he had to begin back again at the first baby and 
sprinkle them. Oh, how the poor little things did scream ! 

I think all eleven were crying by this time, and I could n't 
stand it ; so at the third baby I signed to nry commissionnaire 
that we would go, and we slipped out as quietly as we could. 

II Will there be much more of the service? " I asked him. 
" Oh, yes," he said. " He will preach now to the fathers 
and to the godfathers and godmothers." I doubt if the 
godmothers knew one word he said. The babies all wore 
little round woollen hoods, most of them bright blue, with 
three white buttons in a row on the back. Their dresses 
were white, but short ; and each baby had a long white 
apron on to make a show with in front. This was as long 
as a handsome infant's robe would be made anywhere ; 
but it was undisguisedly an apron, open all the way be- 
hind, and in the case of these poor little screaming crea- 
tures flying in all directions at every kick and writhing 
struggle. I was glad enough to escape the church ; but 
twenty-two women must have come out gladder still a little 
later. On the way home I passed a windmill which I 
could have stayed a day to paint if I had been an artist. 
It was six-sided ; the sails were on red beams ; a red bal- 
cony all round it, with red beams sloping clown as sup- 
ports, resting on the lower ston^ ; the first stoiy was on 
piles, and the spaces between filled up solid with sticks of 
wood, — the place where they kept their winter fuel. Next 
to this came a narrow belt painted light yellow ; then a 
black belt, with windows in it rimmed with wiiite ; then 
the red balcony ; then a drab or gra}' space, — this made 
of plain boards ; then the rest to the top shingled like a 
roof; in this part one window, with red rims in each side. 



842 NORWAY, DENMARK, AND GERMANY. 

A long, low warehouse of light yellow stuccoed walls, 
lined off with dark brown, joined the mill by a covered 
wa\ T ; and the mill-owner's house was close on the other 
side, also with light yellow stuccoed walls and a red-tiled 
roof, and hedges and vines and an orchard in front. Taint 
this, somebody ; do ! 

This is the tale of the first two 6ajs in Copenhagen. In 
my next I will tell you about the museums if 1 come out 
of them alive ; it sounds as if nobody could. One ought 
to be here at least two weeks to really study the superb 
collections of one sort and another. 

I will close this first section of my notions of Denmark 
with a brief tribute to the Danish flea. I considered my- 
self proof against fleas. I had wintered them in Rome, 
had lived familiarly with them in Norway, and m}' con- 
tempt for them was in direct proportion to my familiarity. 
I defied them by day, and ignored them by night. But 
the Danish flea is as David to Saul ! He is a cross be- 
tween a bedbug and a wasp. He is the original of the 
famous idea of the Dragon, symbolized in all the worships 
of the world. I bow before him in terror, and trust most 
devoutly he never leaves the shores of Denmark. 

Good-by. Bless you all ! 



II. 

Dear People, — I promised to tell 'you about the 
museums in Copenhagen. It was a very rash promise : 
and there was a rash promise which I made to myself 
back of that, — that is, to see the Copenhagen museums. 
I had looked forward to them as the chief interest of our 
visit ; they are said to be among the finest in the world, in 
some respects unequalled. One would suppose that the 
Dane's first desire and impulse would be to make it easy for 
strangers to see these unrivalled collections, the pride of 
his capital; on the contrary, he has done, it would seem, 
all that lay in his power to make it quite out of the power 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 343 

of travellers to do anything like justice to them. To really 
see the three great museums of Copenhagen — the Ethno- 
graphic, the Museum of Northern Antiquities, and the 
Rosenborg Castle collection — one would need to stay in 
Copenhagen at least two weeks, and even then he would 
have had but fourteen hours for each museum. 

The Ethnographic is open only on Monday, Wednesday, 
Friday, and Sunday, and open only two hours at a 
time, — on Sunday, from twelve to two ; on the week days, 
from ten to twelve. There are in this museum over thirty 
large rooms, and nearly six hundred cases of labelled and 
numbered objects. All the rooms are of great interest ; one 
could easily spend the whole two hours of the allotted time 
in an}' one of them. To attempt even to walk through the 
whole museum in the two hours is undertaking too much. 

The Museum of Northern Antiquities is open on Thurs- 
days, Saturdays, and Sundays, from twelve to two ; on 
Tuesdays, from five to seven. On Sundays, you see, it is 
at the same hour as the Ethnographic ! In this museum 
are eighteen large rooms filled with objects of the greatest 
interest, from the old "dust heaps" of the lake dwellers 
down to Tycho Brahe's watch. 

The Rosenborg Castle Collection is probably, to travel- 
lers in general, the most interesting of all the collections. 
It is called a "Chronological Collection of the Kings of 
Denmark," — which, being interpreted, means that it is a 
collection of dresses, weapons, ornaments, etc., the greater 
proportion of which have belonged to Danish kings, 
from the old clays of Christian IV. (1448) down to the 
present time. These are most admirably arranged in 
chronological order, so that 3*011 see in each room or divi- 
sion a graphic picture of the royal life and luxury of that 
period. The whole of the great Rosenborg Castle, three 
floors, is devoted to this collection. How many rooms 
there are, I do not know, — certainly twenty ; and there is 
not one of them in which I would not like to spend a half- 
da}'. Now, how do you think the Danish Government 
(for this is a national property) arranges for the exhibition 
of this collection? You may see it, on any day, by apply- 
ing for a ticket the day beforehand ; the hour at which 
you can be admitted will be marked on your ticket ; you 
will arrive, with perhaps twelve others (that being the 



844 NORWAY, DENMARK, AND GERMANY. 

outside number for whom tickets are issued for an}^ one 
hour) ; you will be walked through that whole museum in 
one hour, by one of the Government Inspectors of the 
museum ; he will give you a rapid enumeration of the 
chief objects of interest as you pass ; and you will have no 
clearer idea of any one thing than if 3-011 had been fired 
through the rooms out of a cannon. 

Have I spoken unjustly when I say that the Dane ap- 
pears to have done all in his power to shut up from the 
general public of travellers these choicest collections of 
his country? 

Now I will tell 3 T ou all I know of the Eosenborg Collec- 
tion, and how it happens that I know anything ; and my 
history begins like so many of the old Danish histories, 
with a fight. 

In the outset I paid for a full ticket, as there happened 
to be no one else who had applied to go in that after- 
noon. Later, two Englishmen wishing to see the museum, 
their commissionnaire came to know if I would not like to 
have them go at ths same time, which would reduce the 
price of the tickets by two thirds. This I declined to do, 
preferring to have the entire time of the Museum Inspector 
for my own benefit in way of explanations, etc. With the 
guide all to myself, I thought I should be able far better 
to understand and study the museum. 

Equipped with my note-book and pen and catalogue, 
and with the faithful Harriet by my side, I entered, cheer- 
ful, confident, and full of enthusiasm, especially about 
any and all relics of the famous old Christian IV., whose 
impress on his city and country is so noticeable to this 
day. 

The first scene of my drama opens with the arrival of 
the Inspector whose duty it was on that occasion to exhibit 
the museum. There are three of these Inspectors, who 
take turns in the exhibition. He was a singularly hand- 
some man, — a keen blue eye ; hair about white, whiter 
than it should have been by age, for he could not have 
been more than fifty or fifty-five ; a finely cut face, with 
great mobilit3 T , almost a passion ateness of vivacit3' in its 
expression ; a tali and graceful figure : his whole look and 
bearing gave me a great and sudden pleasure as he ap- 
proached. And when he began to speak in English, my 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 845 

delight was kindled anew ; I warmed at once in anticipa- 
tion of my afternoon. Mistaken dream ! 

I said to him, "I am very sorry, indeed, that we have 
so short a time in which to see these beautiful and inter- 
esting collections. Two hours is nothing." 

44 Oh, I shall explain to 3-011 everything," he said hastily, 
and proceeded to throw open the doors of mysterious 
wall-closets in the room which was called the Presence 
Chamber of Christian IV. 

The walls of this room are of solid oak, divided off into 
panels 03* beautiful carved pillars, with paintings between. 
The ceiling is like the walls, and the floor is of marble. 
In the south wall are four closets filled with more rare 
and exquisite things than I could describe in a hundred 
pages ; all these in one side of the first room ! The first 
thing which my noble Dane pointed out was the famous 
old Oldenborg horn, of which I had before read, and wished 
much to see, — an old drinking-horn of silver, solid chased, 
from brim to tip. The legend ia that it was given to 
Count Otto of Oldenborg by a mountain nymph in a 
forest one da3 T in the 3*ear 909. 

As he pointed out this horn, I opened m3 T catalogue to 
find the place where it was mentioned there, that I might 
make on the margin some notes of points which I wished 
to recollect. I think I might have been looking for this 
perhaps half of a minute, possibly one whole minute, when 
thundering from the mouth of m3 r splendid Dane came, 
44 Do you prefer that 3*011 read it in the catalogue than that 
I tell you?" 

I am not sure, but nrv impression is that I actually 
jumped at his tone. I know I was frightened enough to 
do so. I then explained to him that I was not looking for 
it in the catalogue to read then and there, only to asso- 
ciate what I saw with its place and with the illustrations 
in the catalogue, and to make notes for future use. He 
hardly heard a word I said. Putting out his hand and 
waving my poor catalogue away, he said, 44 It is all there. 
You shall find everything there, as I tell vou ; will you 
listen?" 

Quite cowed, I tried to listen ; but I found that unless I 
carried out my plan of following his explanations by the 
list in the catalogue, and made little marginal notes, I 



346 NORWAY, DENMARK, AND GERMANY. 

should remember nothing ; moreover, that it was impossible 
to look at half the things, as he rapidly enumerated them. 
I opened my catalogue again, and began to note some of 
the more interesting things. The very sight of the cata- 
logue open in noy hands seemed to act upon him like a scarlet 
flag on a bull. Instantly he burst out upon me again ; and 
when I attempted to explain, he interrupted me, — did not 
give me time to finish one sentence, — did not apparently 
comprehend what I meant, or what it was that I wished 
to do, except that it reflected in some way on him as a 
guide and explainer. In vain I tried to stem the tide of 
his angry words ; and the angrier he got, the less intelli- 
gible became his English. 

"Perhaps you take me for a servant in this museum," 
he said. "Perhaps my name is as good in my country as 
yours is in your own ! " 

"Oh, do — do listen to me one minute," I said. "If 
you will only hear me, I think I can make you understand. 
I do implore you not to be so angry." 

"lam not angry. I have listen to you every time, — 
too man}' time. I have not time to listen any more ! " 

This he said so angrily that I felt the tears coming into 
nry eyes. I was in despair. I turned to Harriet and said, 
" Very well, Harriet, we will go." 

" You shall not go ! " he exclaimed. " Twenty years I 
have shown this museum, and never yet was any one before 
dissatisfied with what I tell them. I have myself written 
this catalogue you carry," he cried, tapping my poor book 
with his fingers. "Now I will nothing say, and you 
can ask if you wish I should explain anything." And 
thereupon he folded his arms, and stepped back, the very 
picture of a splendid man in a sulk. Could anything be 
imagined droller, more unnecessary ? I hesitated what to 
do. If I had not had a very strong desire to see the 
museum, I would have gone away, for he had really been 
almost unparclonably rude ; yet I sympathized full}* in his 
hot and hast} 7 temper. I saw clearly wherein his mistake 
lay, and that on his theory of the situation he was right 
and I was wrong ; and I thought perhaps if he watched 
me for a few minutes quietly he would see that I was 
very much in earnest in studying the collection, and that 
nothing had been further from my mind than any distrust 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 347 

of his knowledge. So I gulped down my wounded feel- 
ings, and went on looking silently at the cases and making 
my notes. Presently he began to cool down, to see 
his mistake, and before we had gone through the second 
room was' telling me courteously about everything, wait- 
ing while I made my notes, and pointing out objects of 
especial interest. In less than half an hour he had ceased 
to be hostile, and before the end of the hour he had become 
friendl}', and more. — seized both nry hands in his, ex- 
claiming, " We shall be good friends, — good ! " He was 
as vivacious, imperious, and overwhelming in his friendli- 
ness as in his anger. "You must come again to Rosen- 
borg; you must see it all. I will myself show you every 
room. No matter who sends to come in, they shall not be 
admitted. I go alone with 3*011." 

In vain I explained to him that I had only one more 
daj T in Copenhagen, and that I must spend that in going 
to Elsinore. 

"No, you are not to go to Elsinore. It is not nec- 
essary. You shall not leave Copenhagen without see- 
ing Rosenborg. Promise me that 3*011 will come again 
to Rosenborg. Promise ! Take any hour you please, and I 
will come. You shall have four — five hours. Promise! 
Promise ! " And he seized my hand in both of his, and 
held it, repeating, " Promise me ! Promise ! Oh, we shall 
be very good friends, — very good." 

"Ah," I said, U I knew, if you only understood, you 
would be friendly ; but I really cannot come again." 

He pulled out his watch, made a gesture of despair. " I 
have to leave town in one little half-hour ; and there are 
yet seventeen rooms 3*011 have not seen. You shall not 
leave Copenhagen till you have seen. Do 3*011 promise?" 

I believe if I had not promised I should be still stand- 
ing in the halls of the Rosenborg. When I finally said, 
•• Yes, I promise," he wrung my hand again, and said, — 

" Now we are good friends, we shall be all good friends. 
I will show to you all Rosenborg. Do 3*011 promise ? " 

"Yes," I said, "I promise," and drove awa3*, leaving 
him standing on the sidewalk, his steel blue eyes flashing 
with determination and fire, and a smile on his face which 
I shall not forget. Never before did I see such passionate, 
fierce fulness of life in a man whose hair was white. 



348 NORWAY, DENMARK, AND GERMANY. 

I promised, but I did not go. From the Rosenborg I 
drove to the Museum of Northern Antiquities, — from 
five to seven of that day being m} T only chance of seeing 
it at all. 3y the time I had spent two hours in the hur- 
ried attempt to see the most interesting things in this 
second collection, my brain was in a state of chaos, and 
I went back to my hotel w r ith a sense of loathing of mu- 
seums, only to be compared to the feeling one w r ould have 
about dinners if he had eaten ten hearty ones in one day. 
One does not sleep off such an indigestion in one night. 
The next morning, nothing save actual terror could have 
driven me into a museum ; and as nry noble Dane was 
not present to cow me into obedience, I had energy 
enough to write him a note of farewell and regret. The 
regret was indeed heartfelt, not so much for the museum 
as for him. I would have liked to see those blue eyes 
flash out from under the gray e3'ebrows once more. I 
too felt that we would be "good friends, — good." 

Now I will try to tell 3'ou a little of the little I remember of 
the Rosenborg. I onl t y got as far as Frederick IV.'s time, 
1730. Many of the most beautiful things in the museum 
I did not see, and of man}- that I did see I recollect noth- 
ing, especially of all which I looked at while I was in 
disgrace with the guide ; I might as well not have seen 
them at all. 

One little unpretending thing interested me greatly : it 
was a plain gold ring, with a small uncut sapphire in it ; 
round the circle is engraved, "Ave Maria gr. [gratio- 
sissima]." It was given 03^ King Christian to his wife, 
Elizabeth, on their wedding-da3 T , Aug. 12, 1515, — three 
hundred 3'ears and two weeks before the day I saw it. It 
lay near the great Oldenborg drinking-horn, and few peo- 
ple would care much for it b3 T the side of the other, I sup- 
pose. Then there was another bridal ornament of a dead 
queen, — it had belonged to Dorothea, wife of Christian 
III., — a gold plate, four or five inches square, with an 
eagle in the centre, bearing an escutcheon with the date 
1557 : on the eagle's breast a large uncut sapphire ; over 
the eagle, an emerald and a sapphire ; and under it, a sap- 
phire and an ameth3 T st, all veiy large. There are also 
pearls set here and there in the plate. This was given to 
the city of Copenhagen 03^ the queen, to be worn 03' the 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 349 

daughters of the richest and most honored of the Danish 
people on their wedding-day. It was for many generations 
kept and used in this way, but finally the custom fell into 
disuse ; and now the Copenhagen brides think no more of 
Queen Dorothea at their weddings, than of any other old 
gone-by queen, — which is a pity, it seems to me, for it 
surely was a lovely thought of hers to ally her memory to 
the bridals of young maidens in her land for all time. 

There was in this room, also, Frederick II. 's Order of 
the Elephant, the oldest in existence, and held in great 
veneration b} T people who esteem ornaments of that sort. 
It is much less beautiful than some other orders of less 
distinction. The elephant is a clumsy beast, carve him 
never so fiiiety, enamel him all you will, and call him what 
you like. 

There is also here the Order of the Garter, of that same 
king — twenty-six enamelled red roses on blue shields held 
together by twists of gold cord ; diamonds and pearls 
make it splendid, and that bit of gospel truth -'Evil to 
him that evil thinks," is written on it in rubies, as it 
deserves to be written everywhere. 

This Frederick must have been a gay fellow : for here 
stands a glass goblet, five inches in diameter, and fifteen 
high, out of which he and his set of boon companions fell 
to drinking one day on wagers to see w T ho could drink the 
most, and scratched their names on the glass as they 
drank, each man his mark and record, little thinking that 
the glass would outlive them three centuries and more, as 
it has ; and is likely now, unless Rosenborg burns down, 
to last the world out. 

The thing I would rather own, of all this Frederick's 
possessions, would be one — I would be quite content 
with one — of the plates which German}* sent to him as a 
present. They are red in the middle, with gold escutch- 
eons enamelled on them ; the borders are of plain clear 
amber, rimmed with silver, — one big circle of amber ! The 
piece from which it was cut was big enough to have made 
the whole plate, if the}* had chosen, but it was more beau- 
tiful to set it simply as a rim. Nothing could be dreamed 
of more beautiful in the wa}~ of a plate than this. 

I told you in my last letter what a stamp Christian IV. 
had left on the capital of his kingdom. I fancy, without 



350 NORWAY, DENMARK, AND GERMANY. 

knowing anything about it, that he must have been one of 
the greatest kings Denmark ever had ; at any rate, he built 
well, planned well for poor people, worked with a free 
hand for art and science, fought like a tiger, and loved — 
well, he loved like a king, I suppose ; for he had concubines 
from eveiy country in Europe, and no end of illegitimate 
princes and princesses whom he brought up, maintained, 
and educated in the most royal fashion. He lived many 
years in this Rosenborg ; and when he found he must die, 
was brought back here, and died in a little room we should 
think small to-da t y for a man to lie mortally ill in ; but he 
lived only one week after he was brought back, and it was 
in winter- time, so the open fireplace ventilated the room. 

The upper half of the walls is covered with dark green 
moire silk, with gold flowers on it ; the lower half is cov- 
ered with paintings, many portraits among them ; and in 
places of honor among the portraits, the king's favorite 
clogs, Wild-brat and Tyrk. 

Here are his silver compasses and his ship hand-lantern ; 
the silver scales in which he weighed out his gold and sil- 
ver ; a little hand printing-press, dusty and worn, with the 
brass stamp with his monogram on it, — his occupation in 
rainy days of leisure. Here, also, are the tokens of his 
idle moments, — a silver goblet made out of money won by 
him from four courtiers, who had all betted with him, on one 
6th of February, which would be first drunk before Easter. 
These were the things that I cared most for, — more than 
for the splendors, of which there were closets full, glass 
cases full, tables full : goblets of lapis lazuli, jasper, agate, 
and ciystal, gold and silver ; lamps of crystal ; cabinets 
of ebony ; orders and rings and bracelets and seals 
and note-books and clocks and weapons, all of the cost- 
liest and most beautiful workmanship ; rubies and dia- 
monds and pearls, set and sewed wherever they ,could 
be ; a medicine spoon, with gold for its handle and a hol- 
lowed sapphire for its bowl, for instance, — the sapphire 
nearly one inch across. One might swallow even allopathic 
medicine out of such a spoon as that : and I dare say 
that it was when she was very ill, and had a lot of nasty 
doses to take, that Madame Kirstin — one of the left- 
handed wives — got from the sympathizing king this daint}' 
little gift. "C" and "K" are wrought into a mono- 



ES CYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 351 

gram on the handle, which is three inches long, of em- 
bossed gold. Another sapphire, clear as a drop of ocean 
water with sunlight piercing it, and one inch square, is 
in the same case with the medicine spoon. A chalice, 
with wafer-box, paten, and cup, all of the finest gold, en- 
graved, enamelled, and set thick with precious stones, has 
a gold death's-head and cross-bones on the stem of the 
chalice ; and the eyes of the death's-head are two great 
rose diamonds, which gleam out frightfully. Another 
gold chalice has on its under side a twisted network of 
Arabesque, with sixty-six enamelled rosettes, all open- 
work on it. 

In the room called Christian's workroom is a set of 
caparisons for a horse, — saddle, saddle-cloth, housing, and 
holsters, all of black velvet, sewn thick, even solid, with 
pearls and gold, rubies, sapphires, and rose diamonds. 
The sight of them flashing in sunlight on a horse's back 
must have been dazzling. These were a wedding present 
from King Christian to his son. 

In this room also are several suits of Christian's clothes, 
— jerkin, trousers, and mantle, in the fashion of that clay, 
clashing enough, even when made of common stuffs ; but 
these are of cloth of gold, silver moire, black Brabant 
lace, trimmed in the most lavish way with gold and silver 
laces, and embroidered with pearls and gold. There is a 
suit of dirty and blood-stained linen hanging in one of the 
locked cabinets which does him more credit than these. 
It is the suit he wore at the great naval battle where he 
lost his eye. A shell exploding on the deck, a fragment 
of it flew into his face and instantly destro}'ed his right eye. 
His men thought all was lost ; but he, seizing his handker- 
chief, clapped it into the bleeding socket, and fought on. 
One reads of such heroic deeds as this with only a vague 
thrill of wonder and admiration ; but to see and touch the 
very garments the hero wore is another thing. This old 
blood-stained velvet jerkin is worth more to the Danish 
people than all the scores of bejewelled robes in the Rosen- 
borg ; and I think there are literally scores of them. 

Isext to Christian IV. came Frederick III. ; and in 
his reign the rococo style ruled everything. Three 
rooms in the Rosenborg are devoted to the relics of this 
king's reign ; and a great deal of hideous magnificence they 



352 NORWAY, DENMARK, AND GERMANY. 

hold, it must be confessed, — cabinets and tables and 
candlesticks and ceilings and walls, which are as jar- 
ring to the eye as the Chinese gong is to the ear, and 
appear to be just about as civilized. But the rococo had 
not yet spoiled everything. The jewelled cups and boxes 
and spoons and miniatures are as beautiful as ever ; a set 
of glass spoons with handles of gold and of agate and of 
crystal ; the gold knives and forks that Frederick III. and 
his queen used to travel with. In those days when }*ou 
were asked to tea you carried 3 r our own implements ; ivory 
cups, gold goblets, and goblets of ciystal, a goblet made ! 
out of one solid topaz, and a great tankard made of amber, — | 
these are a few of the little necessaries of every-day life to j 
Frederick's court. His motto was 4t Dominus providebit ;" I 
it is on half of his splendid possessions, — on his mosaic 
tables and his jewelled canes and pomade boxes ; every- 
where it looms up, in unwitting but delicious satire on 
the habit Frederick had of providing for himself, and most 
lavishly too, all sorts of superfluities, which the Lord 

never would think of providing for any human being ! 1 

such, for instance, as a jewel box of silver, with fifteen | 
splendidly cut crystals let into the sides, so that one can 
look through into the box and see on the bottom a fine bit 
of embossed work, the picture of the Judgment of Paris. 
Around these crystals sixty-two large garnets are set, and i 
these again are surrounded by wreaths of flowers and 
leaves in embossed work, set thick with more diamonds j 
than could be counted. A very pretty thing in its wa\', to 
stand on a dressing-table and hold the kind of rings worn 
at this time b}^ the kind of persons who reigned in Den- 
mark ! Another prett3 r little thing he had, — not so useful as 
the jewel-box, but in far more perfect taste, — was a ciystal 
goblet, in shape of a shell, resting on the back of a bend- 
ing Cupid. Eight beautiful heads are cut on the sides of 
this cup, and there is standing on its curling base a winged 
boy. Its translucent shades and shadows are beautiful be- 
yond words. It is said to be the most beautiful specimen 
in the world of work in pure crystal. The topaz goblet 
and the amber tankard, however, would outrival it in most 
eyes. I longed to see the topaz cup held up to the sun, 
filled with pale wine. I believe }'Ou could hear it shine ! f 
The third of the rooms devoted to Frederick and his reign 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 353 

is called the Marble Chamber, and is a superb ic}* place ; 
floor and walls all marble. In cabinets in this room are 
some of Frederick's clothes, — every-day clothes, such 
as dark brown cloth, ornamented down every seam with 
gold and silver lace ; and a dress of his queen's, the only 
dress of a woman which has come down from that age. 
It is one solid mass of embroidery in gold and gay colors 
on silk, stiff as old tapestry ; loops of faded pink ribbon 
down the front, and a long jabot of old point lace all the 
way down the front. There are also a sword and sword- 
belt, and a gun bearing the initials of this lady. The gun 
has a medallion of ivory let in at the butt end, with her 
initials, " S. A.," and her motto, "In God is my hope." 
There is something uncommonly droll in these mottoes of 
faith in God's providing, inscribed on so manj- articles 
of luxury by people who must have certainty spent a good 
part of their time in providing for them selves. 

In the last part of the seventeenth century things in 
Denmark were more and more stamped by the French 
influence. Christian V., who succeeded to Frederick III., 
had spent some time in the court of Louis XIV., and 
wanted to make his own court as much like it as possible. 
So we find, in the rooms devoted to Christian V.'s reign, 
tapestries and cabinets which might all have come from 
France. One of the saloons is hung with superb tapestry, 
all with a red ground ; and the tables and mirrors and 
chairs are all gilded and carved in the last degree of fan- 
tastic decoration. This red room used to be Christian's 
dining-room ; and the plate-warmers still stand before the 
fireplace, — two feet high, round, solid silver, every inch 
engraved . 

Caskets of amber, of ivoiy ; drinking-horns, — one-third 
horn and two-thirds embossed silver, — bowls and globes 
of wrought silver, hunting-cups of solid silver made to fit 
into deer's antlers and with coral knobs lor handles ; 
closets full of fowling-pieces, pistols, silver-sheathed hunt- 
ing-knives, falcon hoods set with real pearls and embroi- 
dered in gold, — orders of all sorts known to Denmark ; 
elephants and St. Georges in silver and crystal and 
cameo ; gold jugs, gold beakers, bowls of green jade, 
with twisted snakes for handles and dragons' heads at 
bottom ; goblets of solid crystal, of countless shapes and 

23 



354 NORWAY, DENMARK, AND GERMANY. 

sizes, — one in shape of a flying-fish borne by two dol- 
phins ; on}-x and jasper and agate and porcelain, made 
into no end of shapes and uses ; — these are a few of the 
things which "God provided" for this Danish king and 
queen. One of these rooms is hung with tapestries of 
lilac silk and gold moire, embroidered with gold and silver 
threads and colors. These were provided by Frederick 
himself, who bVo tight them from Italy. 

But 3'ou don't care a fig who brought the things, or when I 
the} T were brought ; and perhaps 3*011 don't care very much | 
about the things anyhow. I dare say they do not sound • 
half as superb as the}' were ; but I must tell you of a few ) 
more. What do you think of a room with walls, ceiling, 
and a large space in the centre of the floor all of plate I 
glass, the rest of the floor being of exquisite mosaic in 
wood ; and of a coat of crimson velvet embroidered thick S 
with silver thread, to be worn with a pale blue waistcoat, |i 
also embroidered stiff with silver thread ; and of cups cut |1 
out of rubies ; and a great bowl of obsidian set with rubies 
and garnets ; and of topazes big enough to cut heads on 
in fine relief ? There are hundreds and hundreds more of 1 
things I have not mentioned, and hundreds of things I did 
not see even, in the rooms I walked through ; and there 
were seventeen rooms more into which I did not even go. 
If I had, I should have seen twelve superb tapestries, 12 
feet in height, bj* 10 to 20 feet broad, each giving a picture 
of a battle, and all strictly historical ; the Royal Font, of 
solid embossed silver, inside which is placed at every 
christening another dish of gold ; one whole room full 
of the costliest and rarest porcelain from all parts of the 
world, — here is the splendid and famous " Flora Danica" 
service. I saw at a porcelain shop a reproduction of this 
service, eveiy article bearing some Danish flower most 
exquisitely painted. A great platter heaped full of wild 
roses was as lovely as a day in June. Here also are the 
Danish Regalia, kept in a room hung with Oriental carpets, 
and with a floor of black and white marble. "In the |* 
middle of the floor a pyramid arises behind clear thick f 
plate glass, from the flat sides of which, covered with red - 
velvet, the rays of gold and precious stones flash upon us, 
whilst the summit is adorned bj T a magnificent and costly 
crown." This sentence is from the catalogue written by « 






ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 355 

my friend the noble Dane, and is a very favorable speci- 
men of bis English. Bless him, how I do wish I had gone 
back to that museum ! At this distance of time it seems 
incomprehensible to me that I did not. But that daj r I 
felt as if one more look at the simple door of a museum 
would make a maniac of me. So this is all I can tell you 
about the famous Rosenborg. And with the others I will 
not bore you much, for I have made this so long ; only I 
must tell you that in the Ethnographic, which is in some 
respects, I suppose, the most valuable of them all, having 
five rooms full of Prehistoric antiquities from the stone, 
bronze, and early iron ages in every part of the w r orld, and 
twentj' or thirty rooms more full of characteristic things, — 
dresses, implements, ornaments, weapons, of the unculti- 
vated savage or semi-savage races, also of the Chinese, 
Persians, Arabians, Turks, East Indians, etc. ; — in this 
museum I found a most important place assigned to the 
North American Indian : and Dr. Steinhauer, the director 
of the museum, a man whose ethnographical studies and 
researches have made him known to all antiquarians in the 
world was full of interest in them, and appreciation of 
their noble qualities, of their skill and taste in decoration, 
and still more of the important links between them and the 
old civilizations. Here were portraits of all the most dis- 
tinguished of our Indian chiefs ; a whole corridor filled with 
glass cases full of their robes, implements, weapons, decora- 
tions ; several life-size figures in full war-dress : and their 
trappings were by no means put to shame, in point of de- 
sign and color, by the handsomest trappings in Eosen- 
borg ; in fact, they were far more wonderful, being wrought 
by an uncivilized race, living in wildernesses, with only 
rude paints, porcupine quills, and glass beads to work 
with. My ej'es filled with tears, I confess, to find at last 
in little Denmark one spot in the world where there will 
be kept a complete pictorial record of the race of men that 
we have done our best to wipe out from the face of the 
earth, — where historical justice will be clone to them in 
the far future, as a race of splendid possibilities, and 
attainments marvellous, considering the time in which 
they were made. Here was a superb life-size figure of a 
Blackfeet warrior on his horse ; the saddle, trappings, etc., 
are exactly the same in shape and style as an old Arab 



356 NORWAY, DENMARK, AND GERMANY. 

saddle used hundreds of } T ears ago. On the warrior's 
breast is a round disk of lines radiating from a centre, in gay 
colors, of straw and beads, of a device identical with a 
rich Moorish ornament; the same device Dr. Steinhauer 
pointed out to me on a medicine-bag of the Blackfeet 
tribe. 

Here was a figure of a chief of the Sacs and Foxes, in 
full array ; by his side the portrait of his father, with the 
totem of the tribe tattooed on his breast. With enthusi- 
asm Dr. Steinhauer pointed out to me how in one genera- 
tion the progress had been so great that on the robe of 
the son was set in a fine and skilful embroideiy the same 
totem which the father had rudely tattooed on his breast. 
Here were specimens of the handiwork of every tribe, — 
of their dresses, of their weapons ; those of each tribe 
carefully assorted \>y themselves. Dr. Steinhauer knew 
more, I venture to say, about the different tribes, their 
race affinities and connections, than any man in America 
knows to-day. When I told him a little about the scorn 
and hatred which are felt in America towards the Indians, 
the indifference with which their fate is regarded by 
the masses of the people, and the cruel injustice of our 
government towards them, he listened to me with undis- 
guised astonishment, and repeated again and again and 
again, " It is inexplicable ; I cannot understand." 

You can imagine what a thrilling pleasure all this was 
to me. But it was marred by the keenest sense of shame 
of my countiy, that it should have been left for Denmark 
alone to keep a place in historical archives for a fair show- 
ing and true appreciation of the "wards of the United 
States Government." 

I might fill another letter with accounts of the " Collec- 
tion of .Northern Antiquities ; " but don't be frightened : 
I won't, only to tell you that it is far the largest and most 
complete in Europe. And you may see there a specimen 
of everything that has been made, wrought, and worn 
in the way of stone, bronze, iron, or gold and silver, in 
the north countries, from the rude stone chisel with which 
the prehistoric man pried open his oyster and clam shells 
at picnics on the shore, and went awa}' and left his shells 
and "openers" in a careless pile behind him, so that we 
could dig them all up together soriie thousands of years 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 357 

later, down to the superb gold bracelets worn by the 
strong-armed women who queened it in Norway ten cen- 
turies ago. It is a great thing for us that those old fellows 
had such a way of flinging their ornaments into lakes as 
offerings to gods, and burying them by the wheelbarrow- 
full in graves. It was n't a safe thing to do, even as long- 
ago as that, however ; for there are traces in man}' of 
these burial-mounds of their having been opened and 
robbed at some period far back. In one of the rooms of 
this museum are several huge oak coffins, with the mum- 
mied or half-petrified bodies lying in them, just as the}' were 
buried sixteen hundred years ago. The coffins were made 
of whole trunks of trees, hollowed out so as to make a 
sort of trough with a lid ; and in this the body was laid, 
with all its usual garments on. There is an indescribable 
and uncanny fascination in the sight of one of these old 
mummies, — the eyeless sockets, the painful cheekbone, the 
tight-drawn forehead ; they look so human and unhuman 
at once, so awfully dead and yet somehow so suggestive 
of having been alive, that it stimulates a far greater curi- 
osity to know what they did and thought and felt, than it 
is possible to feel about neighbors to-day. I never see 
half a dozen of these mummies together without wishing 
they would sit up and take up the thread of their gossip 
where the}' left it off, — so different from the feeling one 
has about lire gossips, and so utterly unreasonable too; 
for gossip is gossip all the same, and nothing but an 
abomination in any age, whether that of Pharaoh or 
Ulysses Grant. If I did not feel a dreadful misgiving 
that you had had enough museum already, and w r ould be 
bored by more, I really would like to tell you about a few 
more of these things : a necklace, found in a peat bog by 
a poor devil who had begged leave to cut a bit of turf there 
to burn, and to be sure he found eleven beautiful gold things 
of one sort and another. The necklace is very heavy to 
lift. I asked permission to take it in my hands. I laid it 
around my neck, and it would have hurt to wear it ten 
minutes. It was a great snake coil of solid gold, the body 
half as big as my wrist ! If Queen Thyra wore it, she must 
have been a giantess, or else have had a wadded "chest 
protector" underneath her necklaces. She and her hus- 
band, King Gorm, were buried in two enormous mounds 



358 NORWAY, DENMARK, AND GERMANY. 

in Jutland, some fourteen hundred years ago. The mounds 
were so high that they nearly overtopped the little village 
church ; and 3'et, at some time or other, robbers had bur- 
rowed into them, and carried off a lot of things, so that 
when the mounds were scientifically excavated, few relics 
were found. Stealing from that sort of grave seems to 
make the modern methods of body-snatching quite insig- 
nificant. Even A. T. Stewart's bod}' would have been safe 
if it had been in a mound as high as the church steeple. 

Now I must tell you a little more about Harriet. She 
leaves me to-morrow, and I shall grieve at parting with 
the garrulous old soul. Niobe, I call her in my own mind ; 
for she melts into tears at the least emotion. I am afraid 
nobody has ever been very good to her ; for the smallest 
kindness touches her to the quick, and she cannot refrain 
from perpetually breaking out into expressions of fondness 
for me, and gratitude, which are sometimes tiresome. The 
explanation of her good English is that her parents were 
English, though she was born in Copenhagen, has lived 
there all her life, and married a Dane when she was quite 
young. He was a tradesman, and they lived in compara- 
tive comfort, though, as she said, " we never could la}' up a 
penny, because we always sent the children to the best 
schools ; and for ten children, ma'am, it does take a heap 
of schooling ! " 

Of the ten children, six are still living ; and Harriet, at 
sixtj'-four, has thirty-six grandchildren. When she first 
came to me she looked ten 3'ears older than she does now. 
Good food, freedom from care, and her enjoyment of her 
journey have almost worked miracles on her face. Every 
morning she has come out looking better than she did the 
night before. I see that she must have been a very hand- 
some woman in her day, — delicate features, and a soft 
dark brown e}~e, with very great native refinement and 
gentleness of manner. Poor soul ! her hardest days are 
before her, I fear ; for the daughter with whom she lives, 
and for whom she works night and day, is the wife of that 
worthless fellow, our commissionnaire. He is a drunkard, 
and not much more than four fifths "witted." Harriet is 
pew-opener at the English church, and gets a little money 
from that ; the clergyman is very kind to her, and she has 
the promise of a place at last in a sort of "Old Lady's 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 359 

Home" in Copenhagen. This is her outlook! I must 
send you the verses she presented to me yesterday. I 
had left her alone for the greater part of the forenoon, 
and she took to her pen for company. That was the way 
Katrina used to amuse herself when I left her alone. I 
always found her sitting with her elbows on the table, a 
pile of scribbled sheets in front of her, her hair pushed off 
her forehead, and a general expression of fine frenzy about 
her. Katrina's English did not compare with Harriet's at 
all ; that is, it was not so good. I liked it far better. It 
was one perpetual fund of amusement to me ; but I think 
Katrina had more nearly a vein of genius about her, and 
she was not sentimental ; whereas Harriet is a sentiment- 
alist of the first water, — no, of the ' ' seventy thousandth " ! 

Paris, September 19. 
I kept my letter and brought it here to tell you about Ole 

Bull's funeral, full accounts of which reached the H 's 

just before we left Munich on the 9th. It was a splendid 
tribute to the dear old man ; I shall always regret that I did 
not see it. His home is on a beautiful island about sixteen 
miles from Bergen. If it were only possible to make you 
understand how much more the w r ord island means in 
Norway than anywhere else ! But it is not. To those 
of you who know the sort of mountain pasture in which 
great hillocks of moss and stone are thrown up, piled up, 
crowded in, in such labyrinths that you go leaping from 
one to the other, winding in and out in creyice-like paths, 
never knowing where moss leaves off and stone begins, 
— where you will strike firm footing, and where you will 
plunge your foot down suddenly into moss above your 
ankles ; and to those of you who love the countiy and the 
spring in the countiy so well that you know just the look 
of a feathery young birch-tree on the first day of June, 
and of slender young spruce-trees all the 3-ear round, it 
is enough to say that if you take a dozen miles or so of such 
a pasture, and make the hillocks many feet high, and then 
set in here and there little hollows full of the birches, and 
a ravine or two full of the }'oung spruces, and then launch 
your hillocks and birches and spruces straight out into 
deep blue sea, yon '11 have something such an island as 
there are thousands of on the Norway coast. Ole Bull's 



360 NORWAY, DENMARK, AND GERMANY. 

home was on such an island as this, and he had made it 
an ideally beautiful place. Eighteen miles of pathway he 
had made in the labyrinths of the island ; had brought 
soil from the shore, and set gardens in hollows here and 
there. The house is a picturesque and delightful one ; 
and in the great music-room, nearly a hundred feet long, 
there he lay dead, two days, in state like a king, with 
steamers full of sorrowing friends and mourning strangers 
coming to take their last look at his face. The king sent a 
letter of condolence to Mrs. Bull, and the peasants came 
weeping to the side of his bed ; from highest to lowest, 
Norwa\ T mourned. On the cla} r of the funeral, after some 
short services at the house, the body was carried on board 
a steamer, to be taken to Bergen. The steamer was 
draped with black and strewn with green. I believe I 
have told 3-011 of the beautiful custom the Norwegians 
have of strewing green juniper twigs in the street in front 
of their houses whenever they have lost a friend. No 
matter how far awa} T the friend ma}' have lived, when the}' 
hear of his death they strew the juniper around their house 
to show that a death has given them sorrow. It was a 
commentaiy on human life (and death !) that I never went 
out in Bergen without seeing in some street, and often in 
many, the juniper-strewn sidewalks. As the steamer with 
Ole Bull's body approached the entrance of Bergen harbor, 
sixteen steamers, all draped in black, with flags at half- 
mast, sailed out to meet it, turned, and fell into line on 
either side to convoj' it to shore. Bands were playing his 
music all the way. At the wharf they were met 03- nearly 
all Bergen ; and the bod}- was borne in grand procession 
through the streets, which were strewn thick with juniper 
from the wharf to the cemeteiy, at least two or three 
miles. The houses were all draped with black, and many of 
the people had put on black. The golden wreath which 
was given him in San Francisco was borne in the proces- 
sion by one of his friends, and a procession of little girls 
bore wreaths and bouquets of flowers. The grave was 
hidden and half filled with flowers ; and last of all, after 
the bod} T had been laid there, — last and most touching of 
all, came the peasants, crowds of them, gathering close, 
and each one flinging in a fern leaf or a juniper bough or a 
bunch of flowers. Eveiy one had brought something, and 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 361 

the grave was nearly filled up with their offerings. It is 
worth while to be loved like that by a people. Whatever 
scientific critics may say of Ole Bull's playing, he played 
so that he swayed the hearts of the common people ; and 
his own nation loved him and were proud of him, just as 
the Danes loved Hans Christian Andersen, with a love 
that asked no indorsement and admitted no question from 
the outside world. The school of music to which Ole Bull 
belonged has passed away ; but what scientific art has 
gained the people have lost. It will never be seen that 
one of these modern violinists can make uneducated people 
smile and weep as he did. The flowers that are dying on 
his coffin are all immortelles. Such blossoms as these will 
never again be strewn b}^ peasant hands in a player's 
grave. 

It took two days to come from Munich to Paris, — two 
hard days, from seven in the morning till six at night. 
We broke the journey by sleeping at Strasburg, where we 
had just one hour to see the wonderful cathedral and its 
clock. The clock I did n't care so much about, though the 
trick of it is a marvel ; but the twilight of the cathedral, 
lit up by its great roses of topaz and amethyst, I shall 
never forget as long as I live. In my next letter I will 
tell you about it. But now I have only time to copy 
Harriet's verses, and send off this letter. Here they 
are : — 

DENMARK. 

When again in your own bright land you are, 

And with all that dearly you love, 
And at times you look up at the Northern Star 

That stands on the sky above, 
Remember, then, that near forgot, 

Here, near the Gothic strand, 
There is on the globe a little spot, — 

'Tis Denmark, a beautiful land. 
Now at harvest time from there you flew, 

Like the birds from its tranquil shore ; 
They return at springtime, kind and true : 

May, like them, you return once more ! 

Dear Mrs. Jakson, I remain your humble and thankful servant, 

Harriet. 

Poor thing ! when she bade me good-by she began to 
shed tears, and I had to be almost stern with her to stop 



862 NORWAY, DENMARK, AND GERMANY. 

their flow. "Tell your husband," she said, " that there 's 
a little creature in Denmark that you 've made very happ} T , 
that'll never forget 3011," and she was gone. In about 
ten minutes a tap at the door ; there was Harriet again, 
with a big paper of grapes and a deprecating face. ' ' Excuse 
me, ma'am, but they were only one mark and a half a 
pound, and they're much better than 3-011 'd get them in 
the hotel. Oh, I '11 not lose my train, ma'am ; I 've plenty 
of time." And with another kiss on my hand she ran out 
of the room. Faithful creature ! I shall never see her again 
in this world, but I shall remember her with gratitude as 
long as I live. Surely nowhere except in Norwa3 T and 
Denmark could it have happened to a person to find in 
the sudden exigency of the moment two such devoted 
servants as Katrina and Harriet ; and that they should 
have both been rhymers was a doubling up of coincidences 
truly droll. 

Paris is as detestable as ever, — literally a howling and 
waste place ! Of all the 3 T ells and shrieks that ever made 
air discordant, surety the cries of Paris are the loudest 
and worst. My room looks on the street ; and I should 
sa3' that at least three different Indian tribes in distress 
and one in drunken hilarity were wailing and shouting 
under ni3 T windows all the time ! As for the fiacre-men, 
— how like fiasco, fiacre looks written ! — they drive as if 
their souls' salvation depended on just grazing the wheel 
of every vehicle the3* pass. When two of them yell out at 
once, as the3 T go by each other, it is enough to deafen one. 



III. 

Dear People, — I could n't give 3-ou a better illustra- 
tion of what happens to you in foreign countries when 
3'ou pin your faith on people who are said to ' ' speak Eng- 
lish here," than b3 T giving you the tale of how I went from 
Copenhagen to Lubeck. To begin with, I explained to 
the porter of the Konig von Denmark Hotel, who is one of 
the English-speaking attaches of that very good hotel, 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 363 

that I wished, in going to Lubeck, to avoid water as much 
as possible. I endeavored to convey to him that my hor- 
ror of it was in fact hydrophobic, and that I could go 
miles out of m} T way to escape it. He understood me 
perfectly, he said ; and he explained to me a fine route by 
which I was to cross island after island by rail, have only 
short intervals of water between, and come comfortably 
to Lubeck by eight in the evening, provided I would leave 
Copenhagen at 5.45 in the morning, which I was only too 
happy to do for the sake of escaping a long steamboat 
journey. So I arranged everything to that end ; explained 
to the one waiter who spoke English that I must have 
breakfast on the table at 5.40, as I was to leave the house 
at 6.15. He understood perfectly, he said. (I also com- 
missioned him to buy a pound of grapes for my lunch- 
basket ; the relevancy of this will appear later.) I then 
carefully explained to the worthy old lacty who had prom- 
ised for a small consideration to take me to Munich, that 
she must be on the spot at six, with her luggage ; and that 
she was on no account to bring anything to lift in her 
hands, because my own hand-luggage would be all she 
could well handle. Then I asked for my bill, that it might 
be settled the night beforehand, to have nothing on hand 
in the morning but to get off. This was doubly important, 
as the landlord had promised to change my Danish money 
into German money for me, — the Danish bankers having 
no German money. They so hate Germany that they con- 
sider it a disgrace, I believe, even to handle marks and 
pfennigs. The clerk, wmo also "speaks English," said 
he understood me perfectly ; so I went upstairs cheerful 
and at ease in m}~ mind. In half an hour my bill arrived ; 
and I sent down by the waiter, who spoke 4 ' a leetle " 
English, five hundred Danish crowns to pay my bill, 
and have four hundred crowns returned to me in marks. 
Waited one hour, no money ; rang, same waiter appeared. 

44 Where is m}' money ? " 

" Yees, it have gone out ; it will soon return. He is not 
here." 

Waited half an hour longer ; rang again. 

" Where is nry mone}*?" 

"Yees, strachs. He shall all right, strachs." 

44 But I am very tired ; I wish to go to bed." 



364 NORWAY, DENMARK, AND GERMANY. 

" Yees, it shall be kommen." 

Waited another half-hour, — it was now quarter of 
eleven; wrote on a bit of paper, "I have gone to bed; 
cannot take the money to-night. Have it ready for me at 
six in the morning." Bang, and gave it to the waiter, 
ejaculating, " Bureau ; " and pointing downstairs, shut the 
door on him and went to bed. The last thing I heard 
from him, as I shut the door, was, "Strachs, strachs ! " 
That means " Immediately ;" and there is a Norwegian 
proverb that " when the Norwegian says ' Strachs,' he will 
be with 3'ou in half an hour." 

At twenty-five minutes before six I was in the dining- 
room, bonneted, all ready; no sign or symptom of 
breakfast. I went to the little room bej'ond, where the 
waiters are to be found. There was the one who speaks 
least English. " Oh, goodness ! " said I, " where is Wil- 
helm?" Wilhelm being the one mainstay of the estab- 
lishment in the matter of English, and the one who had 
waited upon me during all my stay. 

" Ya, ya. Wilhelm here ; soon will be kommen." 

"But I must have my breakfast; I leave the house in 
half an hour." 

" Ya, ya. Wilhelm is not yet. He sleeps." And the 
good-natured little fellow darted off to call him. Poor 
Wilhelm had indeed overslept; but he appeared in a mi- 
raculously short time, got my breakfast together by bits, 
got the money from the clerk, and did his best to explain 
to me how it was that a given sum of money was at once 
more and less in marks than it was in kroner. I crammed 
it all into my pocket, and ran downstairs to find — no old 
lady ; her ' ' knapsack " on the driver's seat, but she her- 
self not there. Four different people said something to 
me about it, and I could not understand one word they 
said ; so I stepped into the carriage, sat down, and re- 
signed m}'self to whatever was coming next. After about 
ten minutes she appeared, breathless, coining down the 
stairs of the hotel. She had mounted to my room, and, 
unmindful of the significant fact that the door was wide 
open and all my luggage gone, had been waiting there for 
me. This augured well for the journey ! However, there 
was no time for misgivings ; and we drove off at a tear- 
ing rate, late for the train. Suddenly I spied a most 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 365 

disreputable-looking parcel on the seat, — large, clumsy, 
done up in an old dirty calico curtain, from which a few 
brass rings were still hanging. 

" What is that?" I exclaimed. 

-' Only my best gown, ma'am, and my velvet cloak. I 
couldn't disgrace 3*011, ma'am." 

" Disgrace me ! " thought I. "I was never before dis- 
graced by such a bundle." 

" But I told you to bring nothing whatever to carry in 
your hands," I said ; " you must put that into your knap- 
sack. My roll and basket are all 3*011 can possibly lift." 

" Oh, ma'am, it would ruin it to put it in the knapsack. 
I'm not a rich lady, like you, ma'am; it's all I've got: 
but I 'd not like to disgrace you. I was out last night try- 
ing to hire a small trunk to bring ; but you would n't believe 
it, ma'am, they wanted eight kroner down for the deposit 
for the value of it. But I '11 not disgrace you, ma'am, 
and I'll forget nothing. I've a good head at counting. 
You'll see I'll not overlook anything." 

" Never mind," I said ; "you must wear your cloak [she 
had on only a little thin, clinging, black crape shawl, — 
the most pitiful of garments, and no more protection than 
a pocket-handkerchief against cold], and the dress must 
go into the knapsack at Lubeck. I will put it into my 
own roll as soon as we are in the cars." 

At the station — luckily, as I thought — the ticket-seller 
spoke English, and replied readily to m} T inquiry for a 
ticket to Lubeck, by rail, "Yes, by Kiel." Then there 
came a man who wanted three kroner more because my 
trunk was heavy, and another who wanted a few pfennigs 
for having helped the first one lift it. I tried for a minute 
to count out the sum he had mentioned, and then I said, 
" Oh, good gracious, take it all ! " emptying the few little 
coppers and tiny silver bits — which I knew must be, all 
told, not a quarter of a dollar — into his hand. He said 
something which, in my innocence, I supposed was thanks, 
but Brita told me afterwards that he was a " fearfully 
rough man, and what he said was to call me a ' damned 
German devil!' You see, ma'am, they all hate the Ger- 
mans so, and hearing me speak English, he thought it was 
German. The French, too, ma'am, — they hate the Ger- 
mans too. They say that Sara Bernhardt, — I dare say 



NORWAY, DENMARK, AND GERMANY. 

you've seen her, ma'am, — they say she nearly starved 
herself all in her travelling through Germany, because she 
wouldn't eat the German food." 

At the train to see me off were two dear warm-hearted 
Danish women, — mother and daughter, — to whom I had 
brought a letter from friends in America. With barely 
time to thank them and say good-by, I and my old lady 
and her bundle and my own three parcels were all hus- 
tled into a carriage, the door slammed and locked, and we 
were off. Then I sank back and considered the situation. 
I had fancied that all that was neeessaiy was to have a 
person who could speak, — that if I had but a tongue at my 
command, it would answer mv purposes almost as well in 
another person's head as in my own. But I was fast learn- 
ing my mistake. This good old woman, who had never 
been out of Denmark in her life, had no more idea which 
way to turn or what to do in a railway 1 " station than a 
baby. The first five minutes of our journey had shown 
that. She stood, bundles in hand, her bonnet falling off 
the back of her head, her crape shawl clinging limp to her 
figure; her face full of nervous uncertainty, — the very 
ideal of a bewildered old woman, such as one always sees 
at railway stations. The thought of being taken charge' 
of, all the way from Copenhagen to Munich, by this type 
of elderly female, was, at the outset, awful; but very soon 
the comical side of it came over me so thoroughly that I 
began to think it would, on the whole, be more entertaining. 

When she had told me the clay before, as we were driv- 
ing about in Copenhagen, that she had never in her life 
been out of Denmark, though she was sixty-four years 
old, I said, " Really that is a strange thing, — for you to 
be taking your first journey at that age." 

"Oh, well, ma'am," she said, "I'm such a child of 
Nature that I shall enjoy it as much as if I were younger, 
and I 've all the Danish history, ma'am, at my tongue's 
end, ma'am. There's nothing I can't tell 3'ou, ma'am. 
Though we 've been very hard-working, I 've always been 
one that was for making all I could ; and I 've been with 
my children at their lessons always, — we gave them all 
good schooling ; and I've a volume of Danish poetry I've 
written, ma'am, — a volume that thick," marking off at 
least two inches on her finger. 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 367 

"Danish?" said I. "Why did you not write it in 
English ? " 

" Well, ma'am, being raised here, the Danish tongue 
is more my own, much as I spoke English always till xny 
parents died; but I'll write some in English for you, 
ma'am, before we part." 

So I had for the third time alighted on a poet. " Birds 
of a feather," thought I to myself ; but it really is extraor- 
dinary. Norwegian, Dane — I wonder, if I take a Ger- 
man maid to carry me to Oberammergau, if she also will 
turn out ' ' a child of Nature " and a scribbler of verses. 

The way from Copenhagen southward and westward by 
land is delightful. It plunges immediately into a rich 
farming-country, level as an Illinois prairie, and with com- 
fortable farm-houses set in enclosures of trees, as they are 
there ; and I presume for the same reason, — to break the 
force of the winds which might sweep from one end of 
Denmark to the other, without so much as a hillock to 
stay them : no fences, only hedges, and great tracts with- 
out even a hedge, marked off and divided by differing 
colors from the different crops. The second crop of clover 
was in full flower ; acres of wheat or barley, just being 
sheaved ; wagons piled full, rolling down shaded roads with 
long lines of trees on each side. Roeskilde, Ringsted, 
Soro, — three towns, but seemingly only one great farm, 
for seventeen miles out of Copenhagen. Then we began 
to smell the salt water, and to get a fresh breeze in at the 
windows ; and presently we came to Kosbr, where we were 
to take boat. A big man in uniform stood at the door of 
the station, looked at our tickets, said "Kiel," and waved 
his hand toward a little steamer lying at the dock. 

"They say they fear it will be rough, ma'am, as the 
wind is from the southeast," said the old lad}'. 

"Oh, well," said I, "it is only an hour and a half 
across. We cross the Big Belt to Nyborg." 

She accepted my statement as confidingly as a child, 
and we made ourselves comfortable on the upper deck. 
It was half-past nine o'clock. I took out m}~ guide-book 
and studied up the descriptions of the different towns we 
were to pass through after our next landing. A green 
dome-like island came into sight, with a lighthouse on top, 
looking like the stick at the top of a haystack. " That 's in 



368 NORWAY, DENMARK, AND GERMANY. 

the middle of the Belt, ma'am," said Brita. " In the win- 
ter many's the time the passengers across here have to 
land there and stay a day, or ma}'be two ; and sometimes 
they come on the ice-boats. Very dangerous the} T are ; they 
pull them on the ice, and if the ice breaks, jump in and 
row them." 

It seemed to me that we were bearing strangely to the 
south : land was disappearing from view ; the waves grew 
bigger and higher ; spray dashed on the deck ; white-caps 
tossed in all directions. 

"I believe we are going out to sea," said I. 

"It does look like it, ma'am," replied the "child of 
Nature." ' 4 Shall I go and ask ? " 

"Yes," I replied, "go and ask." She returned with 
consternation in every line of her aged face. 

" Oh, ma'am, it's strange they should have told 3 T ou so 
wrong. We 're on this boat till four in the afternoon." 

And so we were, and a half-hour to boot, owing to the 
southeast wind which was dead ahead all the way. Every- 
body was ill, — my poor old protectress most of all, and for 
the first time in her life. 

" Oh, ma'am, I did not think it could be like this," she 
gasped. " I never did feel so awful." I sat grimly still in 
one spot on the deck all that day. What a day it was ! 
About noon it occurred to me that some grapes would be 
a relief to my misery. Opening the basket and taking out 
the bag in which the English-speaking waiter had told me 
were my grapes, I put in my hand and drew out — a hard, 
corky, tasteless pear ! Thanks to the southeast wind, we 
came a half-hour late to Kiel, and thereby missed the 
train to Lubeck which we should have taken, waited 
two hours and a half in the station, and then had to 
take three different trains one after the other, and pay an 
extra fare on each one ; how we ever stumbled through I ! 
don't know, but we did, and at half-past eleven we were 
in Lubeck, safe and sound, and not more than three quar- 
ters dead ! and I shall laugh whenever I think of it as long 
as I live. 

Lubeck is an old town, well worth several days' stud} 7 ; 
and the Stadt Hamburg is a comfortable house to sleep 
and be fed in. You can have a mutton-chop there, and 
that is a thing hard to find in Germany ; and you can 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 369 

have your mutton-chop brought to you by an "English- 
speaking " waiter who speaks English ; and you may have 
it delicately served in your own room, or in a pretty dining- 
room, or on a front porch, walled in thick by oleander- 
trees, ten and fifteen feet high, — a lustrous wall of green, 
through which you have glimpses of such old gables and 
high peaked roofs, red-tiled, and scooped into queer curves, 
as I do not know elsewhere except in Nuremberg. It all 
dates back to 1100 and 1200, and thereabouts, — which 
does not sound so veiy old to 3'ou when you have just 
come from Norway, where a thing is not ancient unless 
it dates back to somewhere near Christ's time ; but for a 
mediaeval town, Lubeck has a fine flavor of antiquity about 
it. It has some splendid old gateway's, and plenty of old 
houses, two-thirds roof, one-third gable, and four-fifths 
dormer-window, with door-posts and corners carved in the 
leisurely way peculiar to that time. Really, one would 
think a man must have his house ordered before he was 
born, to have got it done in time to die in, in those days. 
I have speculated very much about this problem, and it 
puzzles me yet. So many of these old houses look as if it 
must have taken at least the years of one generation to have 
made the carvings on them ; perhaps the building and 
ornamentation of the house was a thing handed down from 
father to son and to son's son, like famous games of chess. 
Nothing less than this seems to me to explain the elabora- 
tion of fine hand- wrought decorations in the way of carving 
and tapestries, which were the chief splendors of splendid 
living in those old times. There is a room in the Mer- 
chants' Exchange in Lubeck, which is entirely w r alled and 
ceiled with carved wood- work taken out of an ancient house 
belonging to one of Lubeck's early burgomasters. These 
carvings were done in 1585 by " an unknown master," and 
were recently transferred to this room to preserve them. 
The panels of wood alternate with panels of exquisitely 
wrought alabaster; two rows of these around the room. 
There were old cupboard doors, now firmly fastened on the 
wall, never to swing again ; and one panel, with a group of 
wood-carvers at work, said — or guessed — to be the por- 
traits of the carver and his assistants. The old shutters are 
there, — each decorated with a group, or single figure, — 
every face as expressive as if it were painted in oil by a 

24 



370 NORWAY, DENMARK, AND GERMANY. 

master's hand. Every inch of the wall is wrought into 
some form of decorations ; the ceiling is carved into great 
squares, with alabaster knobs at the intersections ; a superb 
chandelier of ancient Venetian glass hangs in the middle ; 
and the new room stands to-day exactly as the old one 
stood in the grand old burgomaster's day. It is kept in- 
sured by the Merchants' Guild for $30,000, but twice that 
sum could not replace it. The Merchants' Guild of Lu- 
beck must contain true art-lovers ; a large room opening 
from this one has also finety carved walls, and a frieze of 
the old burgomasters' portraits, and another fine Venetian 
glass chandelier, two centuries old. Through the window 
I caught a glimpse of a spiral stair outside the building ; 
it wound in short turns, and the iron balustrade was a wall 
of green vines ; it looked like the stair to the chamber of a 
princess, but it was only the outside way to another room 
where the Merchants held their sittings. 

The largest of the Lubeck churches is the Church of Saint 
Mary. This was built so big, it is said, simply to outdo the 
cathedral in size, the Lubeck citizens being determined to 
have their church bigger than the bishop's. The result is 
three hundred and thirty-five feet of a succession of frightful 
rococo things, enough to drive the thought of worship out of 
an} T head that has e}~es in it. The exterior is fine, being of 
the best style of twelfth-century brick-work, and there are 
some fine and interesting things to be seen inside ; but the 
general effect of the interior is indescribably hideous, with 
huge grotesque carvings in black and white marble and 
painted wood, at every pillar of the arches. In one of the 
chapels is a series of paintings, ascribed to Holbein, — " The 
Dance of Death." It is a ghastly picture, with a certain 
morbid fascination about it, — a series of fantastic figures, 
alternating with grim skeleton figures of Death. The em- 
peror, the pope, the king and queen, the law-giver, the 
merchant, the peasant, the miser, — all are there, hand in 
hand with the grim, grappling, leaping skeleton, who will 
draw them away. Under each figure is a stanza of verse 
representing his excuse for delay, his reply to Death, — all 
in vain. This chapel had the most uncanny fascination 
to my companion. 

"Oh, ma'am! oh, indeed, ma'am, it is too true!" she 
exclaimed, walking about, and peering through her spec- 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 871 

tacles at each motto. " It is all the same for the pope and 
the emperor. Death calls us all ; and we all would like 
to stay a little longer." 

B}' a fine bronze reclining statue of one of the old bish- 
ops she lingered. "Is it not wonderful, ma'am, the pride 
there is in this poor world?" she said. The reflection 
seemed to me a very just one, as I too looked at the old 
man lying there in his mitre, with the sacred wafer osten- 
tatiously held in one hand, and his crosier in the other ; 
every inch of him, and of the great bronze slab on which 
he lay, wrought as exquisitely as the finest etching. 

At twelve o'clock eveiy day a crowd gathers in this 
church to see a procession of little figures come out of the 
huge clock ; the Lubeck people, it seems, never tire of this 
small miracle. It must be acknowledged that it is a droll 
sight : but one would think, seeing that there are only 
forty thousand people in the town, that there would now 
and then be a day without a crowd ; yet the sacristan 
said, that, rain or shine, every day, the little chapel was 
full at the striking of the first stroke of twelve. The show 
is on the back of the clock, which detracts very much from 
its effect. At the instant of twelve a tin}' white statue 
lifted its arm, struck a hammer on the bell twelve times ; 
at the first stroke a door opened, and out came a proces- 
sion of eight figures, called the Emperor and the Electors ; 
each glided around the circle, paused in the middle, made 
a jerky bow to the figure of Christ in the centre, and then 
disappeared in a door in the other side, which closed after 
them. The figures seemed only a few inches tall at that 
great height ; and the whole thing like part of a Punch 
and Judy show, and quite in keeping with the rococo orna- 
ments on the pillars. But the crowd gazed as devoutly 
as if it had been the elevation of the Host itself; and I 
hurried away, fearing that they might resent the irreverent 
look on m}' countenance. 

There are some carved brass tablets which are superb, 
and a curious old altar-piece, with doors opening after 
doors, like a succession of wardrobes, one inside the 
other, the first doors painted on the inside, the second also 
painted, and disclosing, on being opened, a series of won- 
derful wood carvings of Scriptural scenes, these open- 
ing out again and showing still others ; a fine canopy of 



372 NORWAY, DENMARK, AND GERMANY. 

wrought wood above them, as delicate as filigree. These 
are disfigured, as so many of the exquisite wood carvings 
of this time are, by being painted in grotesque colors ; but 
the carving is marvellous.. The thing that interested me 
most in this church was a tiny little stone mouse carved at 
the base of one of the pillars. You might go all your life 
to that church and never see it. I searched for it long be- 
fore I found it. It is a tiiry black mouse gnawing at the 
root of an oak ; and some old stone- worker put it in there 
six hundred years ago, because it was the ancient emblem 
of the cit} T . There was also a line of old saints and apostles 
carved on the ends of the pews, that were fine ; a Saint 
Christopher with the child on his shoulder that I would 
have liked to filch and carry awa}\ 

In the Jacobi Kirche — a church not quite so old — is a 
remarkable old altar, which a rich burgomaster hit on the 
device of bestowing on the church and immortalizing his 
own family in it at the same time. To make it all right 
for the church, he had the scene of the crucifixion carved 
in stone for the centre ; then on the doors, which must be 
thrown back to show this stone carving, he had himself 
and his family painted. And I venture to say that the 
event justifies his expectations ; for one looks ten minutes 
at the burgomaster's sons and daughters and wife for one 
at the stone carving inside. It is a family group not to be 
forgotten, — the burgomaster and his five sons behind him 
on one door, and his wife with her five daughters in front of 
her on the other door. They are all kneeling, so as to seem 
to be adoring the central figures, — all but the burgomas- 
ter's wife, who stands tall and stately, stiff in gold brocade, 
with a missal in one hand and a long feather in the other ; 
a high cap of the same brocade, flying sleeves at the shoul- 
der, and a long bodice in front complete the dame's array. 
Three of the daughters wear high foolscaps of white ; white 
robes trimmed with ermine, falling from the back of the 
neck, thrown open to show fine scarlet gowns, with bod- 
ices laced over white, and coming down nearly to their 
knees in front. Two little things in long-sleeved dark- 
green gowns — "not out" 3 T et, I suppose — kneel mod- 
estly in front ; and a nun and a saint or a Virgin Mary 
are thrown into the group to make it holy. The burgo- 
master is in a black fur- trimmed robe, kneeling with a 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 373 

book open before him, — the very model of a Pharisee at 
family prayers, — his five sons kneeling behind him in 
scarlet robes trimmed with dark fnr. 

The sacristan said something in German to Brita, 
which she instantly translated to me as "Oh, ma'am, to 
think of it ! They 're all buried here under our very feet, 
ma'am, — the whole family ! And they 'd to leave all that 
finery behind them, didn't they, ma'am?" The thought 
of their actual dost being under our feet at that moment 
seemed to make the family portraits much more real. I 
dare say that burgomaster never did anything worthy of 
being remembered in all his life ; but he has hit on a device 
which will secure him and his race a place in the knowledge 
of men for centuries to come. 

In the Rathhaus — which is one of the quaintest build- 
ings in Lubeck — there is an odd old chimnej'-piece. It 
is downstairs, in what one would call vaults, except that 
they are used for the rooms of a restaurant. It has been 
for centuries a Lubeck custom that when a couple have been 
married in the Church of Saint Mary (which adjoins the Rath- 
haus) , the} T should come into this room to drink their first 
winecup together ; and, by way of giving a pleasant turn to 
things for the bridegroom, the satirical old wood-carvers 
wrought a chimney-piece for this room with a cock on one 
side, a hen on the other, the Israelitish spies bearing the 
huge bunch of the over-rated grapes of Eshcol between 
them, and in the centre below it this motto: " Mairy a 
man sings loudly when they bring him his bride. If he 
knew what they brought him, he might well weep." It is 
an odd thing how universally, when this sort of slur upon 
marriage is aimed at, it is the man's disappointment which 
is set forth or predicted, and not the woman's. It is a very 
poor rule, no doubt ; but it may at least be said to " work 
both ways." There used to be an underground passage- 
way by which they came from the church into this room, 
but it is shut up now. While we sat waiting in the outer 
hall upstairs for the janitor to come and show us this 
room, a bridal couple came down and passed out to their 
carriage, — plain people of the working class. She wore 
a black alpaca gown, and had no bridal sign or symptom 
about her, except the green myrtle wreath on her head. 
But few brides look happier than she did. 



374 NORWAY, DENMARK, AND GERMANY. 

The Rathhaus makes one side of the Market-place, 
which was, like all market-places, picturesque at eleven in 
the morning, dirty and dismal at four in the afternoon. 
I drove through it several times in the course of the fore- 
noon ; and at last the women came to know me, and nodded 
and smiled as we passed. Their hats were wonderful to 
see, — cocked up on top of a neat white cap, with its frill 
all at the back and none in front ; the hats shaped — well, 
nobody could say how they were shaped — like half a 
washbowl bent up, with the little round centre rim left in 
behind ! I wonder if that gives an idea to anybody who 
has not seen the hat. The real wonder, however, was not 
in the shape, but in the material. The}' are made of wood, 

— actually of wood, — split up into the finest threads, and 
sewed like straw ; and the women make them themselves. 
All the vegetable women had theirs bound with bright 
green, with long green loops hanging down behind ; but 
the fishwomen had theirs bound with narrow black bind- 
ing round the edge, lined with purple calico, and with 
black ribbon at the back. Finally, after staring a dozen 
of the good souls out of countenance looking at their heads, 
I bought one of the bonnets outright ! It was the clean- 
est creature ever seen that sold it to me. She pulled it 
off her head, and sold it as readily as she would have 
sold me a dozen eels out of her basket ; and I carried it 
on my arm all the way from Lubeck to Cassel, and from 
Cassel to Munich, to the great bewilderment of many rail- 
way officials and travellers. Before I had concluded my 
bargain there was a crowd ten deep all around the carriage. 
Everybody — men, women, children — left their baskets and 
stalls, and came to look on. I believe I could have bought 
the entire wardrobe of the whole crowd, if I had so wished, 

— so eager and pleased did they look, talking volubly with 
each other, and looking at me. It was a great occasion 
for Brita, who harangued them all b} T instalments from 
the front seat, and explained to them that the bonnet was 
going all the way to America, and that her " lady" had a 
great liking for all " national" things, which touched one 
old lady's patriotism so deeply that she pulled off her white 
cap and offered it to me, making signs that my wooden 
bonnet was incomplete without the cap, as it certainly 
was. On Brita's delicately calling her attention to the 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 375 

fact that her cap was far from clean, she said she would 
go home and wash it and flute it afresh, if the lad}' would 
only buy it ; and three hours later she actually appeared 
with it most exquisitely done up, and not at all dear for 
the half-dollar she asked for it. After buying this bon- 
net I drove back to the hotel with it, ate my lunch in the 
oleander-shaded porch, and then set off again to see the 
cathedral. This proved to me a far more interesting church 
than Saint Mary's, though the guide-books say that Saint 
Mary's is far the finer church of the two. There is enough 
ugliness in both of them, for that matter, to sink them. 
But in the cathedral there are some superb bronzes and 
brasses, and a twisted iron railing around the pulpit, 
which is so marvellous in its knottings and twistings that 
a legend has arisen that the devil made it. 

" How very much the}' seem to have made of the devil 
in the olden time, ma'am, do they not?" remarked Brita, 
entirely unconscious of the fact that she was philosophiz- 
ing ; " wherever we have been, there have been so man}- 
things named in his honor ! " 

The clock in this church has not been deemed worthy 
of mention in the guide-books ; but it seemed to me far 
more wonderful than the one at Saint Mary's. I shall never 
forget it as long as I live ; in fact, I fear I shall live to 
wish I could. The centre of the dial plate is a huge face 
of gilt, with gilt rays streaming out from it ; two enormous 
eyes in this turn from side to side as the clock ticks, right, 
left, right, left, so far each time that it is a squint, — a 
horrible, malignant, diabolical squint. It seems almost ir- 
reverent even to tell you that this is to symbolize the never- 
closing eye of God. The uncanny fascination of these 
rolling eyes cannot be described. It is too hideous to look 
at, 3'et you cannot look awa} T . I sat spellbound in a pew 
under it for a long time. On the right hand of the clock 
stands a figure representing the " Genius of Time." This 
figure holds a gold hammer in its hand, and strikes the 
quarter-hours. On the other side stands Death, — a naked 
skeleton, — with an hour-glass. At each hour he turns his 
hour-glass, shakes his head, and with a hammer in his 
right hand strikes the hour. I heard him strike "three," 
and I confess a superstitious horror affected me. The 
thought of a congregation of people sitting Sunday after 



376 NORWAY, DENMARK, AND GERMANY. 

Sunday looking at those rolling e} T es, and seeing that skele- 
ton strike the hour and turn his hour-glass, is monstrous. 
Surely there was an epidemic in those middle ages of hideous 
and fantastic inventions. I am not at all sure that it has 
not stamped its impress on the plrysiognomy of the German 
nation. I never see a crowd of Germans at a railway 
station without seeing in dozens of faces resemblance to 
ugly gargoyles. And why should it not have told on them ? 
The women of old Greece brought forth beautiful sons and 
daughters, it is said, because they looked alwaj-s on beau- 
tiful statues and pictures. The German women have been 
for a thousand years looking at grotesque and leering or 
coarse and malignant gargoyles carved eveiy where, — on 
the gateways of their cities, in their churches, on the very 
lintels of their houses. Why should not the German face 
have been slowly moulded b} T these prenatal influences ? 

Above this malevolent clock was a huge scaffold beam, 
crossing the entire width of the church, and supporting 
four huge figures, carved with some skill ; the most im- 
modest Adam and Eve I ever beheld ; a bishop and a Saint 
John and a Mary, — these latter kneeling in adoration of 
a crucifixion above. The whole combination — the guilty 
Adam and Eve, the pompous bishop, the repulsive cruci- 
fixion, the puppet clock with its restless eyes and skeleton, 
and the loud tick-tock, tick-tock, of the pendulum, — all 
made up a scene of grotesqueness and irreverence mingled 
with superstition and devotion, such as could not be found 
airy where except in a German church of the twelfth century. 
It was a relief to turn from it and go into the little chapel, 
where stands the altar-piece made sacred as well as famous 
by the hands of that tender spiritual painter, Memling. 
These altar-pieces look at first sight so much like decorated 
wardrobes that it is jarring. I wish the} T had fashioned 
them otherwise. In this one, for instance, it is almost a 
pain to see on the outside doors of what apparently is a cup- 
board one of Memling's angels (the Gabriel) and the Mary 
listening to his message. Throwing these doors back, you 
see life-size figures of four saints, — John, Jerome, Blasius, 
and JEgidius. The latter is a grand dark figure, with a 
head and face to haunt one. Opening these doors again, 
you come to the last, — a landscape with the crucifixion in 
the foreground, and other scenes from the Passion of the 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 377 

Saviour. This is less distinctively Memling-like ; in fact, 
the only ones of them all which one would be willing to 
say positively no man's hand but Memling's had touched, are 
the two tender angels in white on the outside shutters. 

We left Lubeck very early in the morning. As we drove 
to the station, the milkmen and milkwomen were coming 
in, in their pretty carts, full of white wooden firkins, brass - 
bound, with queer long spouts out on one side ; brass 
measures of different sizes, and brass dippers, all shining 
as if the}' had been fresh scoured that very morning, made 
the carts a pretty spectacle. And the last thing of all which 
I stopped to look at in Lubeck was the best of all, — an 
old house with a turreted baj'-window on the corner, and 
this inscription on the front between the first and second 
stories of the house : — 

" North and south, the world is wide : 
East and west, home is best." 

It was in Piatt Deutsch ; and oddly enough, the servant 
of the house, who was at the door, did not know what it 
meant ; and the first two men we asked did not know 
what it meant, — stared at it stupidly, shrugged their 
shoulders, and shook their heads. It was a lovely motto 
for a house, but not a good one for wanderers away from 
home to look at. It brought a sudden sense of homesick- 
ness, like an odor of a flower or a bar of music which has 
an indissoluble link with home. 

It took a whole da} T to go from Lubeck to Cassel, but 
the day did not seem long. It was a series of pictures, 
and poor Brita's raptures over it all were at once amus- 
ing and pathetic. As soon as we began to see elevated 
ground, she became excited. "Oh, oh, ma'am," she 
exclaimed, "talk about scenery in Denmark! It is too 
flat. I am so used to the flat country, the least hill is 
beautiful." " Do you not call this grand?" she would sa}', 
at the sight of a hill a hundred or two feet high. It was 
a good lesson of the meaning of the word relative. 
After all, one can hardly conceive what it must be to live 
sixty-four years on a dead level of flatness. A genuine 
mountain would probably be a terror to a person who had 
led such a life. Brita's face, when I told her that I 
lived at the foot of mountains more than twelve times 



378 NORWAY, DENMARK, AND GERMANY. 

as high as any she had seen, was a study for in- 
credulity and wonder. I think she thought I was lying. 
It was the hay harvest. All the way from Lubeck to Cas- 
sel were men and women, all hard at work in the fields ; 
the women swung their scythes as well as the men, but 
looked more graceful while raking. Some wore scarlet 
handkerchiefs over their heads, some white ; ail had bare 
legs well in sight. At noon we saw them in groups on 
the ground, and towards night walking swiftly along the 
roads, with their rakes over their shoulders. I do not 
understand why travellers make such a to-do always about 
the w r ay women work in the fields in German}*. I am sure 
they are far less to be pitied than the women who work 
in narrow, dark, foul streets of cities ; and the}* look a 
thousand times healthier. Our road lay for man}* hours 
through a beautiful farm country : red brick houses and 
barns with high thatched roofs, three quarters of the whole 
building being thatched roof; great sweeps of meadow, 
tracts of soft pines, kingdoms of beeches, — the whole forest 
looking like a rich yellow brown moss in the distance, and 
their mottled trunks fairly shining out in the cross sun- 
beams, as if painted; wide stretches of brown opens, with 
worn paths leading off across them ; hedges everywhere, and 
never a fence or a wall ; mountain-ash trees, scarlet full ; 
horse-chestnuts by orchards ; towns every few minutes, 
and our train halting at them all long, enough for the 
whole town to make up their minds whether they could go 
or not, pack their bags, and come on board ; bits of marsh, 
with labyrinths of blue water in and out in it, so like 
tongues of the sea that, forgetting where I was, I said, " I 
wonder if that is fresh water." "It must be, ma'am," 
replied the observant Brita, "inasmuch as the white lilies 
are floating beautiful and large in it." 

" Oh," she suddenly ejaculated, "how strange it was ! 
Napoleon III. he thought he would get a good bit of this 
beautiful Germany for a birthday present, and be in Berlin 
on his birthday ; and instead of that the Prussians were in 
Berlin on his birthday." 

At Luneburg we came into the heather. I thought I 
knew heather, but I was to discover my mistake. All the 
heather of my life heretofore — English, Scotch, Norwe- 
gian — had been no more than a single sprig by the side of 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 379 

this. "The dreary Luneburg Heath," the discriminating 
Baedeker calls it. The man who wrote that phrase must 
have been not only color-blind, he must have been color- 
dead ! If a mountain is "dreary" when it turns purple 
pink or pink purple five minutes before the rising sun is 
going to flash full on its eastern front, then the Luneburg 
Heath is "dreary." Acres of heather, miles of heather; 
miles after miles, hour after hour, of swift railroad riding, 
and still heather ! The purple and the pink and the 
browns into which the purple and pink blended and melted, 
shifted every second, and deepened and paled in the light 
and the shadow, as if the earth itself were gentry undulat- 
ing. Two or three times, down vistas among the low 
birches, I saw men up to their knees in the purple, 
apparently reaping it with a sickle. A German lady in 
the car explained that they cut it to strew in the sheep- 
stalls for the sheep to sleep on, and that the sheep ate it : 
bed, bed-blanket, and breakfast all in one ! Who would 
not be a sheep? Here and there were little pine groves 
in this heath ; the pine and the birch being the only trees 
which can keep any footing against heather when it sets 
out to usurp a territory, and even they cannot grow large 
or freel} 7 . Three storks rose from these downs as we 
passed, and flew slowly away, their great 3 T ellow feet 
shining as if they had on gold slippers. 

" The country people reckon it a great blessing, ma'am, 
if a stork will build its nest on their roof," said Brita. 
"I dare say it is thought so in America the same." " No, 
Brita, we have no storks in America," I said. "I dare 
sa} T some other bird, then, you hold the same," she replied, 
in a tone so taking it for granted that no nation of people 
could be without its sacred domestic bird that I was fain 
to fall back on the marten as our nearest approach to such 
a bird ; and I said boastfully that we built houses for them 
in our yards, that they never built on roofs. 

At Celle, when she caught sight of the castle where poor 
Caroline Matilda died, she exclaimed, "Oh, ma'am, that 
is where our poor queen died. It was the nasty Queen 
Dowager did it ; it was, indeed, ma'am. And the king 
had opened the ball with her that very night that he signed 
the order to send her away. They took her in her ball- 
dress, just as she was. If they had waited till morning 



380 NORWAY, DENMARK, AND GERMANY. 

the Danes would have torn her out of the wagon, for they 
worshipped her. She screamed for her baby, and they just 
tossed it to her in the wagon ; and she was onfy twenty." 

Pages of guide-book could not have so emphasized the 
tragedy of that old gray castle as did Brita's words and 
her tearful eyes, and "nasty old Queen Dowager." I sup- 
pose the truth w T ill never be known about that poor young 
queen ; history whirries round so from century to century 
that it seems hardly worth while to mind about it. At 
an} T rate, it can't matter much to either Caroline or 
Struensee, her lover, now. 

Cassel at nine o'clock. Friendly faces and voices and 
hands, and the very air of America in every room. It was 
like a dream ; and like a dream vanished, after twenty-four 
hours of almost unceasing talk and reminiscence and in- 
terchange. " Blessings brighten," even more than "when 
they take their flight," when they pause in their flight long 
enough for us to come up with them and take another look 
at them. 

Cassel is the healthiest town in all Germany ; and when 
you see it you do not wonder. High and dry and clear, 
and several hundred feet up above the plain, it has off-looks 
to wide horizons in all directions. To the east and south 
are beautiful curves of high, hills, called mountains here ; 
thickly wooded, so that they make solid spaces of color, 
dark green or purple or blue, according to the time calen- 
dar of colors of mountains at a distance. (They have 
their time-tables as fixed as railway trains, and much 
more to be depended on.) There is no town in Germany 
which can compare with Cassel as a home for people wish- 
ing to educate children cheaply and well, and not wishing 
to live in the fashions and ways and close air of cities. 
It has a picture-galleiw second to only one in Germany ; 
it has admirable museums of all sorts ; it has a first-rate 
theatre ; good masters in all branches of study are to be 
had at low rates ; living is cheap and comfortable (for 
Germany). The water is good; the climate also (for Ger- 
many) ; and last, not least, the surrounding country is full 
of picturesque scenery, — woods, high hills, streams; just 
such a region as a lover of Nature finds most repaying 
and enjoyable. In the matter of society, also, Cassel is 
especiall} T favored, having taken its tone from the days 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER 381 

of the Electors, and keeping still much of the old fine 
breeding of culture and courtesy. 

It is a misfortune to want to go from Cassel to Munich 
in one day. It can be done ; but it takes fourteen hours 
of very hard work, — three changes, — an hour's waiting' 
at one place, and half an hour at another, and the road for 
the last half of the day so rough that it could honestly be 
compared to nothing except horseback riding over bowl- 
ders at a rapid rate. This is from Gemunden to Munich : 
if there is any other way of getting there, I think nobody 
would go by this ; so I infer that there is not. You must 
set off, also, at the unearthly hour of 5 a. m., — an hour 
at which all virtues ooze out of one ; even honesty out of 
cabmen, as I found at Cassel, when a man to whom I had 
paid four marks — more than twice the regular fare — 
for bringing us a five minutes' distance to the railwa}^ 
station, absolutely had the face to ask three marks more. 
Never did I so long for a command of the German tongue. 
I only hope that the docile Brita translated for me 
literally what I said, as I handed him twelve cents more, 
with, "I gave one dollar because you had to get up so 
earlv in the morning. You know very well that even half 
that sum is more than the price at ordinary times. I will 
give you this fiftyv pfennigs for yourself, and not another 
pfennig do yoxx get ! " I wish that the man that invented 
the word pfennig had to "do a pour of it for one 
tousand year," as clear old Dr. Prohl said of the teapot 
that would not pour without spilling. I think it is the test- 
word of the German language. The nearest direction I 
could give for pronouncing it would be : fill your mouth 
with hasty-pudding, then say purr-f-f-f-f-f and then gulp 
the pudding and choke when you come to the g, — 
that 's a pfennig ; and the idea of such a name as 
that for a contemptible thing of which it takes one hun- 
dred to make a quarter of a dollar ! They do them up in 
big nickel pieces too, — heavy, and so large that in the 
dark you always mistake them for something else. Ten 
hundredths of a quarter ! — you could starve with your 
purse loaded down with them. 

In the station, trudging about as cheerily as if they were 
at home, was a poor family, — father, mother, and five 
little children, — evidently about to emigrate. Each car- 



382 NORWAY, DEN ARK, AND GERMANY. 

ried a big bundle ; even the smallest toddler had her parcel 
tied up in black cloth with a big cord. The mother carried 
the biggest bundle of all, — a baby done up in a bedquilt, 
thick as a comforter ; the child's head was pinned in tight 
as its feet, — not one breath of air could reach it. 

" Going to America, ma'am," said Brita, " I think they 
must be. Oh, ma'am, there was five hundred sailed in 
one ship for America, last summer, — all to be Mormons ; 
and the big fellow that took them, with his gold spectacles, 
I could have killed him. They'll be wretched enough 
when they come to find what they've done. Brigham 
Young 's dead, but there must be somebody in his place 
that's carrying it on the same. They'd not be allowed to 
stay in Denmark, ma'am, — oh, no, they've got to go out 
of the country." 

All da}- again we journeyed through the ha} r harvest, — 
the same picturesque farm-houses, with their high roofs 
thatched or dark-tiled, their low walls white or red or 
pink, marked off into odd-shaped intervals b} 7 lattice-work 
of wood ; no fences, no walls ; only the coloring to mark 
divisions of crops. Town after town snugged round its 
church ; the churches looked like hens with their broods 
gathered close around them, just read}' to go under the 
wings. We had been told that we need not change cars all 
the wa}' to Munich ; so, of course, we had to change three 
times, — bundled out at short notice, at the last minute, 
to gather ourselves up as we might. In one of these hur- 
ried changes I dropped iny stylographic pen. Angry as 
I get with the thing when I am writing with it, m}' very 
heart was wrung with sorrow at its loss. Without much 
hope of ever seeing it again, I telegraphed for it. The 
station-master who did the telegraphing was profoundly 
impressed by Brita's description of the "wonderful in- 
strument" I had lost. " A self-writing pen," — she called 
it. I only wish it were ! " You shall hear at the next 
station if it has been found," he said. Sure enough, at the 
very next station the guard came to the door. "Found 
and will be sent," he said ; and from that on he regarded 
me with a sort of awe-stricken look whenever he entered 
the car. I believe he considered me a kind of female 
necromancer from America ! and no wonder, with two self- 
writing pens in my possession, for luckily I had my 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 383 

No. 2 in my travelling-bag to show as sample of what 
I had lost. 

At Elm we came into a fine hilly region, — hills that had 
to be tunnelled or climbed over by zigzags ; between them 
were beautiful glimpses of valleys and streams. Brita 
was nearly beside herself, poor soul ! Her " Oh's " became 
something tragic. ' w Oh, ma'am, it needs no judge to see 
that God has been here ! " she cried. " We must think on 
the Building-Master when we see such scenery as this." 

As we came out on the broader plains, the coloring of 
the villages grew colder ; unlatticed white walls, and a 
colder gray to the roofs, the groups of houses no longer 
looked like crowds of furry creatures nestled close for pro- 
tection. Some rollicking schoolgirls, with long hair flying, 
got into our carriage, and chattered, and ate cake, and gig- 
gled ; the cars rocked us to and fro on our seats as if we were 
in a saddle on a run-away horse in a Colorado canon. All 
the rough roads I have ever been on have been smooth glid- 
ing in comparison with this. At nine o'clock, Munich, and 
a note from the dear old "Fraulein" to saj T that her 
house was full, but she had rooms engaged for me near 
by. The next day I went to see her, and found her the 
^ame old inimitable dear as ever, — the eyes and the smile 
not a day older, and the drollery and the mimic^ all 
there ; but, alas ! old age has come creeping too close not 
to hurt in some wa}'s, and an ugry rhenmatism prevents 
her from walking and gives her much pain. I had hoped 
she could go to Oberammergau with me ; but it is out of 
the question. At night she sent over to me the loveliest 
basket of roses and forget-me-nots and mignonette, with 
a card, " Good-night, my dear lady, — I kiss }'ou ; " and I 
am not too proud to confess that I read it with tears in 
my eyes. The dear, faithful, loving soul ! 



THE VILLAGE OF OBERAMMERGAU. 

Mountains and valleys and rivers are in league with the 
sun and summer — and, for that matter, with winter too — 
to do their best in the Bavarian Highlands. Lofty ranges, 
ever green at base, ever white at top, are there tied with 
luminous bands of meadow into knots and loops, and 
knots and loops again, tightening and loosening, opening 
and shutting in labyrinths, of which only rivers know the 
secret and no man can speak the charm. Villages which 
find place in lands like these take rank and relation at 
once with the divine organic architecture already builded ; 
seem to become a part of Nature ; appear to have existed 
as long as the hills or the streams, and to have the same 
surety of continuance. How much this natural correlation* 
may have had to do with the long, unchanging simplicities 
of peoples born and bred in these mountain haunts, it 
would be worth while to analyze. Certain it is that in all 
peasantry of the hill countries in Europe, there are to be 
seen traits of countenance and demeanor, — peculiarities of 
bod3 T , habits, customs, and beliefs which are indigenous 
and lasting, like plants and rocks. Mere lapse of time 
hardly touches them ; they have defied many centuries ; 
only now in the mad restlessness of progress of this the 
nineteenth do they begin to falter. But they have excuse 
when Alps have come to be tunnelled and glaciers are 
melted and measured. 

Best known of all the villages that have had the good 
fortune to be born in the Bavarian Highlands is Ober- 
ammergau, the town of the famous Passion Play. But 
for the Passion Play the great world had never found 
Oberammergau out, perhaps ; yet it might well be sought 
for itself. It lies 2,600 feet above the sea, at the head of 



THE VILLAGE OF OBERAMMERGAU. 385 

a long stretch of meadow lands, which the River Ammer 
keeps green for half the 3 T ear, — at the head of these, and 
in the gateway of one of the most beautiful walled valleys 
of the Alps. The Ammer is at once its friend and foe ; in 
summer a friend, but malicious in spring, rising suddenly 
after great rains or thaws, and filling the valley with a 
swift sea, by which everything is in danger of being swept 
away. In 1769 it tore through the village with a flood 
like a tidal wave, and left 011I3- twelve houses standing. 

High up on one of the mountain-sides, northeast of the 
village, is a tiny spot of greensward, near the course of one 
of the mountain torrents which swell the Ammer. This 
green spot is the Oberammergauers' safet} T -gange. So 
long as that is green and clear the valley will not be 
flooded ; as soon as the water is seen shining over that 
spot it is certain that floods will be on in less than an 
hour, and the whole village is astir to forestall the clanger. 
The high peaks, also, which stand on either side the town, 
are friend and foe alternately. White with snow till Jul} 7 , 
they keep stores of a grateful coolness for summer heats ; 
but in winter the sun cannot climb above them till nine 
o'clock, and is lost in their fastnesses again at one. Ter- 
rible hail-storms sometimes whirl down from their sum- 
mits. On the 10th of May, 1774, there were three of these 
hail-storms in one da} T , which killed eveiy green blade and 
leaf in the fields. One month later, just as vegetation had 
fairly started again, came another avalanche of hail, and 
killed everything a second time. On the 13th of June, 
1771, snow lay so deep that men drove in sledges through 
the valley. This was a year never to be forgotten. In 
1744 there was a storm of rain, thunder, and lightning, in 
which the electric fire shot down like javelins into the 
town, set a score of houses on fire, and destroyed the 
church. One had need of goodly devotion to keep a com- 
posed mind and contented spirit in a dwelling-place sur- 
rounded by such dangers. The very elements, however, 
it seems, are becoming tamed by the inroads of civilization ; 
for it is more than fifty 3-ears since Oberammergau has 
seen such hail or such lightning. 

The village is, like all Tyrolean villages, built without 
apparent plan, — no two houses on a line, no two streets 
at right angles, everybody's house slanting across or 

"25 



386 NORWAY, DENMARK, AND GERMANY. 

against somebody else's house, the confusion realty attain- 
ing the dignity of a fine art. If a child were to set out a 
to}^ village on the floor, decide hastily to put it back in its 
box, sweep it all together between his two hands, then 
change his mind, and let the houses remain exactly as they 
had fallen, with no change except to set them right side 
up, I think it would make a good map of Oberammergau. 
The houses are low, white-plastered, or else left of the 
natural color of the wood, which, as it grows old, is of a 
rich dark brown. The roofs project far over the eaves, and 
are held down by rows of heavy stones to keep them from 
blowing off in wind-storms. Tiny open-work balconies are 
twined in and out capriciously, sometimes filled with gay 
flowers, sometimes with ha}' and dried herbs, sometimes 
with the firewood for winter. Oberammergau knows in 
such matters no law but each man's pleasure. It is at 
each man's pleasure, also, where he will keep his manure- 
heap ; and usually he elects to keep it close to the street, 
joining his barn or his house, or his neighbor's barn or 
house, at convenience. Except that there are many small 
sluices and rivulets and canals of spring water wandering 
about the village to cany off the liquidation, this would be 
intolerable, and surely would create pestilences. As it is, 
the odors are abominable, and are a perpetual drawback 
to the delight one would otherwise take in the picturesque 
little place. 

There are many minute gardens and bits of orchard of 
all possible shapes, — as many and as man3'-sided as the 
figures in the first pages of Euclid. I saw one, certainly 
not containing more than eight square feet, which was 
seven-sided, fenced and joined to two houses. Purple 
phlox, dahlias, and lilacs are the favorite out-door flowers. 
Of these there were clumps and beds which might have been 
transported from New England. In the balconies and 
window-sills were scarlet geranium, white alyssum, and 
pansies. 

The most striking natural feature of Oberammergau is 
the great mountain-peak to the southwest, called the 
Kofel. This is a bare, rocky peak of singularly bold con- 
tour. On its summit is set a large cross, which stands 
out always against the sky with a clearness almost solemn. 
The people regard this Kofel as the guardian angel of their 



THE VILLAGE OF OBERAMMERGAU. 387 

Village ; and it is said that the reply was once made to per- 
sons who were urging the Passion Plaj T actors to perform 
their play in England or America, — 

44 We would do so if it were possible ; but to do that, it 
would be needful to take the entire village and our guardian 
spirit, the Kofel." 

I arrived in Oberammergau on a Wednesda}*, and counted 
on finding myself much welcomed, three days in advance 
of the da3* of the play. Never was a greater mistake. A 
country cousin coming uninvited to make a visit in the 
middle of a busy housewife's spring house-cleaning would 
be as welcome. As I drove into the village the expression 
of things gave me alarm. Every fence, post, roof, bush, 
had sheets, pillow-cases, or towels drying on it ; the porches 
and grass-plots were strewn with pillows and mattresses ; 
a general fumigation and purification of a quarantined 
town could not have produced a greater look of being 
turned wrong side out. This is what the cleanly Ober- 
ammergau women do every week during the Passion Play 
season. It takes all the time intervening between the 
weekly representations of the play to make ready their 
bedrooms and beds. 

I was destined to greater alarms and surprises, however. 
The Frail Rutz, to whom I had written for lodgings, and to 
whose house I drove all confident, had never heard of my 
name. It became instantaneously apparent to me that I 
probably represented to her mind perhaps the eleven hun- 
dred and thirt3 T -seventh person who had stopped at her door 
with the same expectation. Half of her house was being 
re-roofed, " to be done hy Sunday ; " all her bed-linen was 
damp in baskets in the kitchen ; and she and her sister 
were even then ironing for dear life to be done in time to 
begin baking and brewing on the next day. Evidently 
taking time by the forelock was a good way to come to a 
dead-lock in Oberammergau. To house after house I 
drove, — to Frau Zwink's bird-cage, perched on the brink 
of a narrow canal, and half over it, it seemed. Just be- 
fore me stood a post-carriage, at Frau Zwink's door ; and 
as I stepped out two English ladies with bags, bundles, 
and umbrellas disappeared within Frau Zwink's door, hav- 
ing secured the only two available perches in the cage. 
The Frau came running with urgent solicitations that I 



388 NORWAY, DENMARK, AND GERMANY. 

should examine a closet she had, which she thought might 
answer. 

"Oh, is she the lady of the house, and she barefoot?" 
exclaimed my Danish maid, aghast at the spectacle. Yet 
I afterwards heard that the Fran Zwink's was one of the 
notably comfortable lodging-places in the town. In another 
house were shown to us two small dark rooms, to reach 
which one must climb a ladder out of the common living- 
room of the family. From house after house came the re- 
sponse, "No rooms; all promised for Saturday." At 
intervals I drove back to Frau Rutz's for further sugges- 
tions. At last she became gradually impressed with a 
sense of responsibility for our fortunes ; and the mystery 
of her knowing nothing about my letter was cleared up. 
Her nephew had charge of the correspondence ; she never 
saw the letters ; he had not yet had time to answer one 
half of the letters he had received. Most probably my 
letter might be in his pocket now. Friendship grew up 
between my heart and the heart of the Frau Rutz as we 
talked. Who shall fathom or sound these bonds which 
create themselves so quickly with one, so slowly with 
another? She was an Oberammergau peasant, who knew 
no word of my tongue ; I a woman of another race, life, 
plane, who could not speak one word she could compre- 
hend, and our interpreter was only a servant ; but I think 
I do not exaggerate when I say that the Frau and I be- 
came friends. I know I am hers ; and I think if I were 
in Oberammergau in need, I should find that she was 
mine. 

B3 7 some unexplained accident (if there be such things) 
the best room in all Oberammergau was still left free, 
— a great sunny room, with a south window and east 
windows, a white porcelain stove, an old-fashioned spin- 
net, a glass-doored corner-cupboard full of trinkets, old- 
fashioned looking-glasses, tables, and two good beds ; 
and of this I took possession in incredulous haste. It was 
in the house of George Lang, merchant, the richest man 
in the town. The history of the family of which he is now 
the leading representative is identified with the fortunes of 
Oberammergau for a centuiy past. It is an odd thing that 
this little village should have had its line of merchant 
princes, — a line dating back a hundred 3~ears, marked by 



THE VILLAGE OF OBERAMMERGAU. 389 

the same curious points of heredity as that of the Vander- 
bilts or Astors in America, and the Rothschilds in Europe ; 
men as shrewd, sharp, foreseeing, fore-planning, and ex- 
ecutive in their smaller wa}', and perhaps as arbitrary in 
their monopolies, as some of our millionnaiies. 

In 1765 there lived in the service of the monastery at 
Ettal a man named Joseph Lang. He was a trusted man, 
a sort of steward and general supervisor. When the mon- 
astery was suppressed, Joseph Lang's occupation was gone. 
He was a handy man, both with tools and with colors, and 
wandering down to Oberammergau, halted for a little to 
see if he could work himself in with the industry already 
established there of toy-making. At first he made simply 
frames, and of the plainest sort; soon — perhaps from a 
reverent bias for still ministering to the glory of the church, 
but probably quite as much from his trader's perception 
of the value of an assured market — he began to paint 
wooden figures of saints, apostles, Hofy Virgins, and 
Christs. These figures at first he imported from the Tyrol, 
painted them, and sent them back there to be sold. Before 
long he had a large majority of the Oberammergau villagers 
working under his direction as both carvers and colorers 
in this business, — a great enlargement of their previous 
trade of mere tojMnaking. 

This man had eleven sons. Ten of them were carvers 
in wood, one was a painter and gilder. All these sons 
worked together in the continuing and building up of their 
father's business. One of them, George Lang, perceiving 
the advantage of widening business connections, struck 
out for the world at large, established agencies for his 
house in man}' countries, chiefly in Russia, and came home 
to die. He had six sons and four or five daughters, it is 
not certainly known which ; for, as the present George 
Lang said, telling this genealogical histoiy in his delight- 
ful English: "The archives went up in fire once, so they 
did not know exactly." All six of these sons followed 
the trades of carving, painting, and gilding. One of them, 
the youngest, Johann, continued the business, succeeding 
to his father's position in 1824. He was perhaps the 
cleverest man of the line. He went from county to 
country, all over Europe, and had his agents in America, 
England, Australia, Russia. He was on terms of acquain- 



390 NORWAY, DENMARK, AND GERMANY. 

tance with people in high position everywhere, and was 
sometimes called "The King of Oberammergau." Again 
and again the villagers wished to make him burgomaster or 
magistrate, but he would not accept the position. Never- 
theless it finally came to pass that all legal writings of 
the town, leases, conveyances, etc., made, were signed by 
his name as well as b} T the names of the recognized officials. 
First, "themagistracy of Oberammergau," then, " Johann 
Lang, Agent," as he persisted in calling himself, ran in 
the records of the parties to transactions in Oberammergau 
at that time. 

In 1847 the village began to be in great trouble. A large 
part of it was burned ; sickness swept it ; whole families 
were homeless, or without father or brother to support 
them. Now shone out the virtues of this "King of Ober- 
ammergau," who would not be its burgomaster. He 
supported the village : to those who could work he gave 
work, whether the work had present value to him or not ; 
to those who could not work he gave food, shelter, clothes. 
He was a rich man in 1847, when the troubles began. In 
1849 he was poor, simply from his lavish giving. He had 
only two sons, to both of whom he gave an education in 
the law. Thus the spell of the succession of the craft of 
wood- workers was broken. No doubt ambition had entered 
into the heart of the " King of Oberammergau" to place his 
sons higher in the social scale than -any success in mere 
trade could lift them. One of these sons is now burgo- 
master of the village ; he is better known to the outside 
world as the Caiaphas of the Passion Play. To one know- 
ing the antecedents of his house, the dramatic power with 
which he assumes and renders the Jewish High-Priest's 
haughty scorn, impatience of opposition, contempt for the 
Nazarene, will be seen to have a basis in his own pride of 
birth and inherited habit of authority. 

The other son, having been only moderately successful 
in making his way in the world as a lawyer, returned to 
Oberammergau, succeeded to his father's business in 1856, 
but lived only a short time, dying in 1859. He left a widow 
and six children, — three sons and three daughters. For a 
time the widow and a sister-in-law carried on the business. 
As the sons grew up, two of them gradually assumed more 
and more the lead in affairs, and now bid fair to revive and 



THE VILLAGE OF OBERAMMERGAU. 391 

restore the old traditions of the family power and success. 
One of them is in charge of a branch of the business in 
England, the other in Oberammergan. The third son is an 
officer in the Bavarian army. The aunt is still the ac- 
countant and manager of the house, and the young people 
evidently defer to her advice and authorit} r . 

The daughters have been educated in Munich and at 
convents, and are gentle, pleasing, refined young women. 
At the time of the Passion Pla}* in 1880 they did the honors 
of their house to hundreds of strangers, who were at once 
bewildered and delighted to find, standing behind their 
chairs at dinner, young women speaking both English and 
French, and as courteously attentive to their guests' every 
wish as if they had been extending the hospitality of the 
"King of Oberammergau," a half-century back. 

Their house is in itself a record. It stands fronting an 
irregular open, where five straggling roadways meet, mak- 
ing common centre of a big spring, from which water runs 
ceaselessly day and night into three large tanks. The 
house thus commands the village, and it would seem no 
less than natural that all post and postal service should 
centre in it. It is the largest and far the best house in 
the place. Its two huge carved doors stand wide open 
from morning till night, like those of an inn. On the 
right-hand side of the hall is the post-office, combined 
with which is the usual universal shop of a country village, 
holding everything conceivable, from a Norway dried her- 
ring down to French sewing-silk. On the left-hand side 
are the warerooms of wood-carvings: the first two rooms 
for their sale ; behind these, rooms for storing and for 
packing the goods, to send away ; there are four of these 
rooms, and their piled-up cases bear testimony to the 
extent of the business they represent. 

A broad, dark, winding stairway leads up to the second 
floor. Here are the living-rooms of the family ; spacious, 
sunny, comfortable. At the farther end of this hall a great 
iron door leads into the barn ; whenever it is opened, a 
whiff of the odor of hay sweeps through ; and to put out 
your head from your chamber-door of a morning, and 
looking down the hall, to see straight into a big haymow, 
is an odd experience the first time it happens. The house 
faces southeast, and has a dozen windows, all the time 



392 NORWAY, DENMARK, AND GERMANY. 

blazing in sunlight, — a goodly thing in Oberammergau, 
where shadow and sljade mean reeking damp and chill. 
On the south side of the house is an old garden, chiefly 
apple-orchard ; under these trees, in sunny weather, the 
family take their meals, and at the time of the Passion 
Play more than fifty people often sat down at outdoor 
tables there. These trees were like one great aviary, so 
full were they of little sparrow-like birds, with breasts of 
cinnamon-brown color, and black crests on their heads. 
The} T chatted and chattered like magpies, and I hardly ever 
knew them to be quiet except for a few minutes every 
morning, when, at half-past five, the village herd of fifty 
cows went by, each cow with a bell at her neck ; and all 
fifty bells half ringing, half tolling, a broken, drowsy, 
sleep}', delicious chime, as if some old sacristan, but half 
awake, was trying to ring a peal. At the first note of 
this the birds always stopped, — half envious, I fancied. 
As the chime died away, they broke out again as shrill as 
ever, and even the sunrise did not interrupt them. 

The open square in front of the house is a perpetual 
stage of tableaux. The people come and go, and linger 
there around the great water-tanks as at a sort of Bethesda, 
sunk to profaner uses of every-day cleansing. The com- 
monest labors become picturesque performed in open air, 
with a background of mountains, by men and women with 
bare heads and bare legs and feet. Whenever I looked 
out of my windows I saw a picture worth painting. For 
instance, a woman washing her windows in the tanks, 
holding each window under the running stream, tipping it 
and turning it so quickly in the sunshine that the waters 
gliding off it took millions of prismatic hues, till she 
seemed to be scrubbing with rainbows ; another with 
two tubs full of clothes, which she had brought there to 
wash, her petticoat tucked up to her knees, her arms bare to 
the shoulder, a bright red handkerchief knotted round her 
head, and her eyes flashing as she beat and lifted, wring- 
ing and tossing the clothes, and flinging out a sharp or a 
laughing word to eveiw passer ; another coming home at 
night with a big bundle of green grass under one arm, her 
rake over her shoulder, a free, open glance, and a smile and 
a bow to a gay postilion watering his horses ; another who 
had brought, apparently, her whole stock of kitchen utensils 



THE VILLAGE OF OBERAMMERGAU. 393 

there to be made clean, — jugs and crocks, and brass pans. 

How the}" glittered as she splashed them in and out ! She 

did not wipe them, only set them down on the ground to 

dry, which seemed likely to leave them but half clean, after 

all. Then there came a dashing young fellow from the 

Tyrol, with three kinds of feathers in his green hat, short 

brown breeches, bare knees, gray yarn stockings with a 

pattern of green wreath knit in at the top, a happy-go- 

lueky look on his face, stooping down to take a mouthful of 

the swift-running water from the spout, and getting well 

splashed 03' missing aim with his mouth, to the uproarious 

delight of two women just coming in from their hay-making 

in the meadows, one of them balancing a hay-rake and 

pitchfork on her shoulder with one hand, and with the 

other holding her dark-blue petticoat carefully gathered up 

in front, full of hay ; the other drawing behind her (not 

wheeling it) a low, scoop-shaped wheelbarrow full of green 

grass and clover, — these are a few of an}" day's pictures. 

And thither came ever}" day Issa Kattan, from Bethlehem 

of Judaea, — a brown-skinned, deer-eyed Syrian, who had 

come all the way from the Holy Land to offer to the 

Passion Play pilgrims mother-of-pearl trinkets wrought in 

Jerusalem ; rosaries of pearl, of olive-wood, of seeds, 

scarlet, yellow, and black, wonderfully smooth, hard, and 

shining. He wore a brilliant red fez, and told his gentle 

lies in a voice as soft as the murmuring of wind in pines. 

He carried his wares in a small tray, hung, like a muff, by 

a cord round his neck, the rosaries and some strips of 

bright stuffs hanging down at each side and swinging back 

and forth in time to his slow tread. Issa paced the streets 

patiently from morn till night, but took good care to be at 

this watering-place many times in the course of the day, 

chiefly at the morning, and when the laborers were coming 

home at sunset. 

Another vender, as industrious as he, but less pictur- 
esque, also haunted the spot : a man who, knowing how 
dusty the Passion Play pilgrims would be, had brought 
brushes to sell, — brushes big, little, round, square, thick, 
thin, long, short, cheap, dear, good, bad, and indifferent; 
no brush ever made that was not to be found hanging on 
that man's body, if you turned him round times enough. 
That was the way he carried his wares, — in tiers, strings, 



strata, all tied together and on himself in some inexpli- 
cable wa} T . One would think he must have slipped him- 
self into a dozen " cat's-cradles " of twine to begin with, 
and then had the brushes netted in and out on this, foun- 
dation. All that remained to be seen of him was his head, 
above this bristling ball, and his feet shuffling below. To 
cap the climax of his grotesqueness, he wore on his back 
a wooden box, shaped like an Indian pappoose frame ; and 
in this stood three or four lofty long-handled brushes for 
sweeping, which rose far above his head. 

Another peasant woman — a hay- maker — I remember, 
who came one night ; never again, though I watched long- 
ingly for her, or one like her. She wore a petticoat of 
umber- brown, a white blouse, a blue apron, a pink-and- 
white handkerchief over her head, pinned under her chin ; 
under one arm she carried a big bunch of tall green 
grasses, with the tasselled heads hanging loose far behind 
her. On the other shoulder rested her pitchfork, and in 
the hand that poised the pitchfork she held a bunch of 
dahlias, red, white, and yellow. 

But the daintiest and most memorable figure of all that 
flitted or tarried here, was a little brown-e} T ed, golden- 
haired maiden, not more than three years old. She lived 
near h\, and often ran away from home. I saw her some- 
times led bj T the hand, but oftenest without guide or pro- 
tector, — never alone, however ; for, rain or shine, early or 
late, she carried always in her arms a huge puppet, with a 
face bigger than her own. It wore a shawl and a knit 
hood, the child herself being always bareheaded. It was 
some time before I could fathom the mystery of this doll, 
which seemed shapeless yet bulky,, and heavier than the 
child could well lift, though she tugged at it faithfully and 
with an expression of care, as we often see poor babies in 
cities lugging about babies a little }'ounger than them- 
selves. At last I caught the puppet out one day without 
its shawl, and the mystery was revealed. It was a milli- 
ner's bonnet-block, on which a face had been painted. No 
wonder it seemed heav} T and shapeless ; below the face 
was nothing but a rough base of wood. It appeared that 
as soon as the thing was given to the child, she conceived 
for it a most inconvenient and unmanageable affection, — 
would go nowhere without it, would not go to sleep with- 



THE VILLAGE OF OBERAMMERGAU. 395 

out it, could hardly be induced to put it for one moment 
out of her tired little arms, which could hardly clasp it 
round. It seemed but a fitting reward to perpetuate some 
token of such faithfulness ; and after a good deal of plead- 
ing I induced the child's aunt, in whose charge she lived, to 
bring her to be photographed with her doll in her arms. 
It was not an eas}' thing to compass this ; for the only pho- 
tographer of the town, being one of the singers in the 
chorus, had small leisure for the practice of his trade in 
the Passion Play year ; but, won over by the novelty of 
the subject, he found an odd hour for us, and made the 
picture. The little thing was so frightened at the sight of 
the strange room and instruments that she utterly refused 
to stand alone for a second, which was not so much of a mis- 
fortune as I thought at first, for it gave me the aunt's face 
also ; and a very characteristic Oberammergau face it is. 

At' the same time I also secured a photograph of the 
good Frau Rutz. It was an illustration of the inborn dra- 
matic sense in the Oberammergau people, that when I ex- 
plained to Frau Rutz that I wished her to sit for a picture 
of an Oberammergau woman at her carving, she took the 
idea instantly, and appeared prompt to the minute, with a 
vase of her own carving, her glue-pot, and all her tools, to 
la}' on the table 03- her side. kt Do you not think it would 
be better with these ? " she said simply ; then she took up 
her vase and tool, as if to work, seated herself at the 
table in a pose which could not be improved, and looked up 
with, "Is this right?" The photographer nodded his 
head, and, presto ! in five seconds it was done ; and Frau 
Rutz had really been artist of her own picture. The like- 
ness did her less than justice. Her face is even more like 
an old Memling portrait than is the picture. Weather- 
beaten, wrinkled, thin, — as old at forty-five as it should 
be by rights at sixty, — hers is still a noble and beautiful 
countenance. Nothing would so surprise Frau Rutz as to 
be told this. She laughed and shook her head when, on 
giving her one of the photographs, I said how much I 
liked it. "If it had another head on it, it might be very 
good," she said. She is one of the few women in Ober- 
ammergau who do delicate carving. In the previous win- 
ter she had made thirty vases of this pattern, besides doing 
much other work. 



NORWAY, DENMARK, AND GERMANY. 

Very well I came to know Fran Rutz's chiselled and ex- 
pressive old face before I left Oberammergau. The front 
door of her house stood always open ; and in a tiny kitchen 
opposite it, — a sort of closet in the middle of the house, 
lighted only b} T one small window opening into the hall, 
and by its door, which was never shut, — she was generally j 
to be seen stirring or skimming, or scouring her bright sauce- j 
pans. Whenever she saw us, she ran out with a smile, j 
and the inquiry if there was airything she could do for us. 
On the day before the Passion Pla} T she opened her little 
shop. It was about the size of a steamboat stateroom, 
built over a bit of the sidewalk, — Oberammergau fashion, , 
— and joined at a slant to the house ; it was a set of 
shelves roofed over, and with a door to lock at night,* not \ 
much more : eight people crowded it tight ; but it was | 
packed from sill to roof with carvings, a large part of 
which had been made by herself, her husband and sons, , 
or workmen in their employ, and most of which, I think, 
were sold by virtue of the Frau's smile, if it proved as 
potent a lure to other buyers as to me. If I drove or 
walked past her house without seeing it, I felt as if I had 
left something behind for which I ought to go back ; and 
when she waved her hand to us, and stood looking after us 
as our horses dashed round the corner, I felt that good 
luck was invoked on the drive and the da}'. 

Driving out of Oberammergau, there are two roads to 
choose from, — one up the Ammer, by way of a higher val- 
le} T , and into closer knots of mountains, and so on into the 
T} T rol ; the other down the Ammer, through meadows, 
doubling and climbing some of the outpost mountains of 
the range, and so on out to the plains. On the first road 
lies Ettal, and on the other Unterammergau, both within 
so short a distance of Oberammergau that the} 7 are to be 
counted in among its pleasures. 

Ettal is one of the twelve beautiful houses which the 
ecclesiastics formerly owned in this part of Bavaria. 
These old monks had a quick eye for beauty of landscape, 
as well as a shrewd one for all other advantages of locality ; 
and in the days of their power and prosperity they so 
crowded into these South Bavarian highlands that the re- 
gion came to be called " Pfaffenwinkel," or "The Priest's 
Corner." Abbeys, priories, and convents — a dozen of 



THE VILLAGE OF OBERAMMERGAU. 397 

them, all rich and powerful — stood within a day's jour- 
ney of one another. Of these, Ettal was pre-eminent for 
beauty and splendor. It was founded early in the four- 
teenth century by a German emperor, who, being ill, was 
ready to promise anything to be well again, and being ap- 
proached at this moment by a crafty Benedictine, prom- 
ised to found a Benedictine monaster}' in the valley of the 
Ammer, if the Holy Virgin would restore him to health. 
An old tradition says that as the emperor came riding up the 
steep Ettaler Berg, at the summit of which the monaster} 7 
stands, his horse fell three times on his knees, and refused 
to go farther. This was construed to be a sign from 
heaven to point out the site of the monastery. But to 
all unfore warned travellers who have approached Ober- 
ammergau by way of Ettal, and been compelled to walk 
up the Ettaler Berg, there will seem small occasion for 
any suggestion of a supernatural cause for the emperor's 
horse tumbling on his knees. A more unmitigated two 
miles of severe climb w r as never built into a road ; the 
marvel is that it should have occurred to mortal man to do 
it, and that there is as yet but one votive tablet by the 
roadside in commemoration of death by apoplexy in the 
attempt to walk up. It was Alois Pfaurler who did thus 
die in July, 1866, — and before he w*as half-way up, too. 
Therefore this tablet on the spot of his death has a de- 
pressing effect on people for the latter half of their struggle, 
and no doubt makes them go slower. 

How much the Benedictines of Ettal had to do with the 
Passion Play which has made Oberammergau so famous, 
it is now not possible to know. Those who know most 
about it disagree. In 1634, the year in which the play 
was first performed, it is certain that the Oberammergau 
community must have been under the pastoral charge of 
some one of the great ecclesiastical establishments in that 
region ; and it is more than probable that the monks, who 
were themselves much in the way of writing and perform- 
ing in religious plays, first suggested to the villagers this 
mode of working for the glory and profit of the Chinch. 

Their venerable pastor, Daisenberger, to whom they 
owe the present version of the Passion Play, was an Ettal 
monk ; and one of the many plays which he has arranged 
or written for their dramatic training is "The Founding 



398 NORWAY, DENMARK, AND GERMANY. 

of the Monastery of Ettal." The closing stanzas of this 
well express the feeling of the Oberammergauer to-day, 
and no doubt of the Ettal monk centuries ago, in regard 
to the incomparable Ammer Thai region : — 

" Let God be praised ! He hath this vale created 
To show to man the glory of his name ! 
And these wide hills the Lord hath consecrated 
Where he his love incessant may proclaim. 

" Ne'er shall decay the valley's greatest treasure, 
Madonna, thou the pledge of Heaven's grace ! 
Her blessings will the Queen of Heaven outmeasure 
To her quiet Ettal and Bavaria's race." 

Most travellers who visit Oberammergau know nothing 
of Unterammergau, except that the white and brown lines 
of its roofs and spires make a charming dotted picture on 
the Ammer meadows, as seen from the higher seats in the 
Passion Play theatre. The little hamlet is not talked 
about, not even in guide-books. It sits, a sort of Cinder- 
ella, and meekl}' does its best to take care of the strangers 
who come grumbling to sleep there, once in ten } T ears, 
only because beds are not to be had in its more favored 
sister village farther up the stream. Yet it is no less pictur- 
esque, and a good deal cleaner, than is Oberammergau ; 
gets hours more of sunshine, a freer sweep of wind, and 
has compassing it about a fine stretch of meadow-lands, 
beautiful to look at, and rich to reap. 

Its houses are, like those in Oberammergau, chiefly 
white stucco over stone, or else dark and painted wood, 
often the lower story of white stucco and the upper one of 
dark wood, with a fringe of balconies, dried herbs, and 
wood-piles where the two stories join. Many of the stuc- 
coed houses are gaj^ with Scripture frescos, more -than 
one hundred years old, and not faded yet. There are 
also many of the curious ancient windows, made of tiny 
round panes set in lead. When these are broken, square 
panes have to be set in. Nobocty can make the round 
ones airy more. On the inside of the brown wooden i 
shutters are paintings of bright flowers ; over the win- ; 
dows, and above the doors, are also Scripture frescos. 
One old house is covered with them. One scene is Saint 
Francis lying on his back, with his cross by his side ; and 
another, the coronation of the Virgin Mary, in which God ■ 



TEE VILLAGE OF OBERAMMERGAU. 399 

the Father is represented as a venerable man wrapped in 
a red and yellow robe, with a long white beard, resting his 
hand on the round globe, while Christ, in a red mantle, is 
putting the crown on the head of Mary, who is resplendent 
in bright blue and red. On another wall is Saint Joseph, 
holding the infant Christ on his knee. There must have 
been a marvellous secret in the coloring of these old fres- 
cos, that they have so long withstood the snows, rains, and 
winds of the Ammer valle3 T . The greater part of them 
were painted by one Franz Zwink, in the middle of the 
last century. The peasants called him the ' ' wind painter," 
because he worked with such preternatural rapidity. Many 
legends attest this ; among others, a droll one of his find- 
ing a woman at her churning one da}' and asking her 
for some butter. She refused. "If 3-011 '11 give me that 
butter," said Zwink, "I'll paint a Mother of God for 3*011 
above your door." " Ver3 T well ; it is a bargain," said the 
woman, "provided the picture is done as soon as the 
butter," whereupon Zwink mounted to the wall, and, his 
brushes flying as fast as her churn- dasher, lo ! when the 
butter was clone, there shone out the fresh Madonna over 
the door, and the butter had been fairly earned. Zwink 
was an athletic fellow, and walked as swiftly- as he painted ; 
ga3', moreover, for there is a tradition of his having run 
all the way to Munich once for a dance. Being too poor 
to hire a horse, he ran thither in one day, danced all night, 
and the next day ran back to Oberammergau, fresh and 
merry. He was originally only a color-rubber in the studio 
of one of the old rococo painters ; but certain it is that he 
either stole or invented a most triumphant system of color- 
ing, whose secret is unknown to-day. It is said that in 
1790 every house in both Ober and Unter Ammergau was 
painted in this way. But repeated fires have destroyed 
many of the most valuable frescos, and man3' others have 
been ruthlessly covered up 03^ whitewash. An old history 
of the valley says that when the inhabitants saw flames 
consuming these sacred images, the3 T wept aloud in terror 
and grief, not so much for the loss of their dwellings as 
for the irreparable loss of the guardian pictures. The 
effect of these on a race for three generations, — one after 
another growing up in the habit, from earliest infancy, of 
gazing on the visible representations of God and Christ 



400 NORWAY, DENMARK, AND GERMANY. 

and the Mother of God, placed as if in token of perpetual 
presence and protection on the very walls and roofs of 
their homes — must be incalculably great. Such a people 
would be religious by nature, as inherently and organically 
as the}' were hardy of frame by reason of the stern neces- 
sities of their existence. It is a poor proof of the superi- 
ority of enlightened, emancipated, and cultivated intellect, 
with all its fine analyses of what God is not, if it tends to 
hold in scorn or dares to hold in pit} T the ignorance which 
is yet so full of spirituality that it believes it can even see 
what God is, and feels safer by night and day with a cross 
at each gable of the roof. 

One of the Unterammergau women, seeing me closely 
studying the frescos on her house, asked me to come in, 
and with half-shy hospitality, and a sort of childlike glee 
at my interest, showed me every room. The house is one 
of some note, as note is reckoned in Unterammergau: it 
was built in 1700, is well covered with Zwink's frescos, 
and bears an inscription stating that it was the birthplace 
of one " Max Anrich, canon of St. Zeno." It is the dwell- 
ing now of only humble people, but has traces of better 
days in the square-blocked wooden ceilings and curious 
old gayly-painted cupboards. Around three sides of the 
living-room ran a wooden bench, which made chairs a 
superfluous luxury. In one corner, on a raised stone 
platform, stood a square stove, surrounded bj T a broad 
bench ; two steps led up to this bench, and from the 
bench, two steps more to the lower round of a ladder- 
like stair leading to the chamber overhead. The kitchen 
had a brick floor, worn and sunken in hollows ; the stove 
was raised up on a high stone platform, with a similar 
bench around it, and the woman explained that to sit on 
this bench with 3 T our back to the fire was a very good thing 
to do in winter. Every nook, every utensil, was shining 
clean. In one corner stood a great box full of whetstones, 
scythe-sharpeners ; the making of these was the industry 
b}' which the brothers earned the most of their money, she 
said ; surely verj' little money, then, must come into the 
house c There were four brothers, three sisters, and the 
old mother, who sat at a window smiling foolishly all 
the time, aged, imbecile, but very happy. As we drove 
awaj T , one of the sisters came running with a few little 



THE VILLAGE OF OBERAMMERGAU. 401 

blossoms she had picked from her balcony ; she halted, 
disappointed, and too slry to offer them, but her whole face 
lighted up with pleasure as I ordered the driver to halt 
that I might take her gift. She little knew that I was 
thinking how much the hospitality of her people shamed 
the cold indifference of so-called finer breeding. 

A few rods on, we came to a barn, in whose open door- 
way stood two women threshing wheat with ringing flails. 
Red handkerchiefs twisted tight round their heads and 
down to their e}~ebrows, barefooted, bare-legged, bare- 
armed to the shoulders, swinging their flails lustilj*, and 
laughing as they saw me stop my horses to have a better 
look at them ; they made one of the vividest pictures I 
saw in the Ammer valley. Women often are hired there 
for this work of threshing, and the} T are expected to swing 
flails with that lusty stroke all day long for one mark. 



26 



THE PASSION PLAY AT OBERAMMERGAU. 

The stir the Passion Play brings does not begin in Ober- 
ammergau till the Friday afternoon before the Sabbath of 
the play. Then, gradually, as a hum begins and swells in 
a disturbed hive of bees, begins and swells the bustle of 
the incoming of strangers into the little place. By sunset 
the crooked lanes and streets are swarming with people who 
have all fancied they were coming in good season before 
the crowd. The open space in front of George Lang's 
house was a scene for a painter as the sun went clown on 
Friday, Sept. 5, 1880. The village herd of cows was 
straggling past on its easy homeward wa}-, the fifty bells 
tinkling even more sleepily than in the morning ; a little 
goat-herd, with bright brown e^-es, and bright brown par- 
tridge feathers in his hat, was worrying his little flock of 
goats along in the jam; vehicles of all sorts, — einspan- 
ners, diligences, landaus, — all pulling, twisting, turning, 
despairing, were trying to go the drivers did not know 
where, and were asking the way helplessly of each other. 
To heighten the confusion, a load of ha}' upset in the mid- 
dle of the crowd. Twenty shoulders were under it in a 
twinkling, and the cart was rolled on, limping, on three 
wheels, friendly hands holding up the corner. Thirty-four ! 
vehicles, one after another, halted in front of George Lang's 
door. Out of many of them the occupants jumped con- 
fidently, looking much satisfied at sight of so comfortable 
a house, and presenting little slips of white paper consign- 
ing them to Mr. Lang's care. Much crestfallen, the}' re- 
entered their vehicles, to be driven to the quarters reserved 
for them elsewhere. Some argued ; some grumbled ; some 
entreated : all in vain. The decrees of the house of Lang 
are like those of the Medes and Persians. 



PASSION PLAY AT OBERAMMERGAU. 403 

It was long after midnight before the sound of wheels and 
voices and the cracks of postilions' whips ceased under my 
windows ; and it began again before daylight the next 
morning. All was hurry and stir, — crowds going to the 
early mass ; still greater crowds, with anxious faces, be- 
sieging the doors of the building where were to be issued 
the numbered tickets for seats at the Play ; more crowds 
coming in, chiefly pedestrians ; peasant men and women in 
all varieties and colors of costume ; Englishmen in natty 
travelling-clothes, with white veils streaming from their 
hats ; Roman Catholic priests in squads, their square- 
brimmed hats and high black coats white with dust. Eager, 
intent, swift, by hundreds and hundreds they poured in. 
Without seeing it, one can never realize what a spectacle 
is produced by this rushing in of six thousand people into 
a little town in the space of thirty-six hours. There can 
be nothing like it except in the movements of armies. Be- 
ing in the streets was like being in a chorus or village- 
fair scene on an opera stage a mile big, and crowded full 
from corner to corner. The only thing to do was to aban- 
don one's self to currents, like a ship afloat, and drift, now 
down this street and now down that, now whirl into an 
eddy and come to-a stop, and now burr}' purposelessly on, 
just as the preponderating push might determine. Mingled 
up in it all, in eveiwbody's way and under all the horses' 
feet, were dozens of little mites of Oberammergauers, look- 
ing five, six, seven years of age, like lost children, offering 
for sale " books of the Passion Pla}\" Every creature 
above the age of an infant is busy at this time in other 
ways in Oberammergau ; so it is left for the babies to hawk 
the librettos round the streets, and very shrewdly they do 
it. Little tots that are trusted with only one book at a 
time, — all the} r can cany , — as soon as it is sold, grab the 
pennies in chubby hands and toddle home after another. 

As the day wore on, the crowd and the hum of it increased 
into a jam and a racket. By four o'clock it was a din of 
wheels, cracking whips, and postilions' cries. Great dili- 
gences, loaded down till they squeaked and groaned on 
their axles ; hay-wagons of all sizes, rigged with white 
cloth stretched on poles for a cover, and rough planks 
fastened to the sides for seats, came in procession, all 
packed with the country people ; hundreds of shabbj- ein- 



404 NORWAY, DENMARK, AND GERMANY. 

spanners, bringing two or three, and sometimes a fourth 
holding on behind with dangling feet ; fine travelling-car- 
riages of rich people, their postilions decked in blue and 
silver, with shining black hats, and brass horns swung over 
their shoulders by green and white cords and tassels, — 
on the} T came into the twist and tangle, making it worse, 
minute b\ T minute. 

Most remarkable among all the remarkable costumes to 
be seen was that of an old woman from Dachau. She was 
only a peasant, but she was a peasant of some estate and 
degree. She had come as escort and maid for four young 
women belonging to a Roman Catholic institution, and 
wearing its plain uniform. The contrast between the young 
ladies' conventional garb of black and white and the blazing 
toilet of their guide and protector was ludicrous. She 
wore a jacket of brocade stiff with red, green, and silver 
embroidery ; the sleeves puffed out big at the shoulder, 
straight and tight below to the wrist. It came down be- 
hind only a little lower than her shoulder-blades, and it was 
open in front from the throat to the waist-belt, showing 
beneath a solid mass of gold and silver braid. Nine enor- 
mous silver buttons were sewed on each side the fronts ; a 
scarf of soft black silk was fastened tight round her throat by 
a superb silver ornament, all twists and chains and disks. 
Her black woollen petticoat was laid in small, close flutings, 
straight from belt to hem, edged with scarlet, and appar- 
ently w r as stiff enough to stand alone. It was held out 
from her body, just below the belt, b} r a stiff rope coil un- 
derneath it, making a tight, hard, round ridge just below 
her waist, and nearly doubling her apparent size. All the 
women in Dachau must be as " thick" as that, she said ; 
and " lovers must have long arms to reach round them ! " 
The jacket, petticoat, and scarf, and all her ornaments, had 
belonged to her grandmother. What a comment on the 
qualit}- of the fabrics and the perpetuity of a fashion ! She 
was as elegant to-day as her ancestor had been nearly a cen- 
tury before her. On her head she wore a structure of bro- 
caded black ribbon, built up into high projecting horns or 
towers, and floating in streamers behind. As she herself 
was nearly six feet tall, this shining brocade fortress on the 
top of her head moved about above the heads of the crowd 
like something carried aloft for show in a procession. 



PASSION PLAY AT OBERAMMERGAU. 405 

Another interesting sight was the peasants who had 
come bringing edelweiss and blue gentians to sell, — great 
bunches of the lovely dark blue chalices, drooping a little, 
but wonderfully fresh to have come two days, or even three, 
from home ; the edelweiss blossoms were there by sheaves, 
and ten pfennigs a flower seemed none too much to pa}' to 
a man who had climbed among dangerous glaciers to pick 
it, and had walked three whole days to bring it to market. 

The very poor people, who had walked, were the most 
interesting. They came in groups, evidently families, two 
women to one man ; carrying their provisions in baskets, 
bundles, or knapsacks ; worn and haggard with dust and 
fatigue, but wearing a noticeable look of earnestness, al- 
most of exaltation. Many of them had walked forty or 
fifty miles ; they had brought only black bread to eat ; they 
would sleep the two nights on hay in some barn, — those 
of them who had had the great good fortune to secure 
such a luxury; the rest — and that meant hundreds — 
would sit on the ground anywhere where the}- could find a 
spot clear and a rest for their heads ; and after two nights 
and a day of this, they trudged back again their forty 
miles or fifty, refreshed, glad, and satisfied for the rest of 
their lives. This is what the Passion Play means to the 
devout, ignorant Catholic peasant of Bavaria to-day, and 
this is what it has meant to his race for hundreds of years. 

The antagonism and enlightenment of the Reformation 
did not reach the Bavarian peasant, — did not so much as 
disturb his reverence for the tangible tokens and presenta- 
tions of his religion. He did not so much as know when 
miracle plays were cast out and forbidden in other coun- 
tries. But it was sixty-one years later than this that the 
Oberammergau people, stricken with terror at a plague in 
their village, knew no better device to stay it than to vow 
to God the performance of a Play of the Divine Passion of 
Christ. It is as holy a thing to the masses of them now 
as it was then ; and no one can do justice to the play, 
even as a dramatic spectacle, who does not look at it 
with recognition of this fact. 

The early history of the Play itself is not known. The 
oldest text-book of it now extant bears the date 1662, — 
nearly a generation later than the first performance of it 
in Oberammergau. This manuscript is still in possession 



406 NORWAY, DENMARK, AND GERMANY. 

of the Lang family, and is greatly amusing in parts. The 
prologue gives an account of the New Testament plan of 
salvation, and exhorts all people to avail themselves of 
it with gratitude and devotion. At this juncture in rushes 
a demon messenger from the devil, bearing a letter, which 
he unfolds and reads. In this letter the devil requests all 
the people not to yield to the influence of this play, asks 
them to make all the discordant noises tlie} T can while it is 
going on, and promises to reward them well if they will do 
so. The letter is signed: "I, Lucifer, Dog of Hell, in 
my hellish house, where the fire pours out of the win- 
dows." The demon, having read the letter aloud, folds 
it up and addresses the audience, saying: "Now 3*011 
have heard what nry master wishes. He is a very good 
master, and will reward you ! Hie, Devil ! up and away ! " 
with which he leaps off the stage, and the p\&y at once be- 
gins, opening with a scene laid in Bethany, — a meeting 
between Christ and his disciples. These grotesque fancies, 
quips, and cranks were gradually banished from the Pky. 
Every 3'ear it was more or less altered, priest after priest 
revising or rewriting it, down to the time of the now ven- 
erable Daisenberger, who spent his 3*outh in the monastery 
of Ettal, and first saw the Passion Pla3^ acted at Ober- 
ammergau in 1830. 

In 1845 the Oberammergau people, in unanimous en- 
thusiasm, demanded to have Daisenberger appointed as 
their pastor. He at once identified himself warmty with 
the dramatic as well as the spiritual life of the communit3 r ; 
and it is to his learning and skill that the final admirable 
form of the Passion Pla3 r , and the villagers' wonderful 
success in rendering it, are due. He has written man3 T 
Biblical dramas and historical plays founded on incidents 
in the history of Bavaria. Chief among these are : ' ; The 
Founding of the Monastery of Ettal," "Theolinda," 
"King Heinrich and Duke Arnold of Bavaria," "Otto 
Von Wittelsbach at the Veronese Hermitage," "The 
Bavarians in the Peasants' War," "Luitberge, Duchess of 
Bavaria." He has also dramatized some of the legends 
of the saints, and has translated the "Antigone" of 
Sophocles and arranged it for the Oberammergau stage. 
A half-century's training under the guidance of so learned 
and dramatic a writer, who added to his learning and fine 



PASSION PLAY AT OBERAMMERGAU. 407 

dramatic faculty a profound spirituality and passionate 
adherence to the faiths and dogmas of the Church, might 
well create, in a simple religious- communit}", a capacity 
and a fervor even greater than ,have been shown by the 
Oberammergau people. To understand the extent and the 
method of their attainment, it is needful to realize all this ; 
but no amount of study of the details of the long process 
can fully convey or set forth the subtle influences which 
must have pervaded the very air of the place during these 
years. The acting of plays has been not only the one rec- 
reation of their life, otherwise hard- worked, sombre, and 
stern, — it has been their one channel for the two greatest 
passions of the human heart, — love of approbation and 
the instinct of religious worship ; for the Oberammergau 
peasant, both these passions have centred on and in his 
chance to win fame, please his priest, and honor God, by 
playing well some worthy part in the Passion Pla}\ The 
hope and the ambition for this have been the earliest 
emotions roused in the Oberammergau child's breast. In 
the tableaux of the Play even veiy young children take 
part, and it is said that it has always been the reward held 
up to them as soon as they could know what the words 
meant: "If thou art good, thou mayest possibly have the 
honor of being selected to play in the Passion Pla} 7 when 
the year comes round." Not to be considered fit to take 
any part in the Pla\' is held, in Oberammergau, to be dis- 
grace ; while to be regarded as worthy to render the part 
of the Christus is the greatest honor which a man can 
receive in this world. To take away from an actor a part 
he has once pla3'ed is a shame that can hardly be borne ; 
and it is on record that once a man to whom this had 
happened sank into a melancholy which became madness. 

When the time approaches for the choice of the actors 
and the assignment of the parts, the whole village is in a 
turmoil. The selections and assignments are made by a 
committee of forty -five, presided over by the priest and by 
the venerable "Geistlicher Path" Daisenberger, who, now 
in his eightieth year, still takes the keenest interest in all 
the dramatic performances of his pupils. The election 
day is in the last week of December of the year before the 
Play ; and the members of the committee, before going to 
this meeting, attend a mass in the church. The deciding 



408 NORWAY, DENMARK, AND GERMANY. 

as to the players for 1880 took three days' time, and great 
heart-burnings were experienced in the community. In 
regard to the half-dozen prominent parts there is rarely 
much disagreement ; but as there are some seven hundred 
actors required for the Play, there must inevitably be 
antagonisms and jealousies among the minor characters. 
However, when the result of the discussions and votes of 
the committee is made public, all dissension ceases. One 
of the older actors is appointed to take charge of the 
rehearsals, and from his authority there is no appeal. 
Each player is required to rehearse his part four times a 
week ; and as early in the spring as the snow is out of the 
theatre the final rehearsals begin. Thus each Passion 
Play 3'ear is a year of very hard work for the Oberammer- 
gauers. Except for their constant familiarity with stage 
routine and unbroken habit of stage representation through 
the intervening 3*ears, the3^ would never be able to endure 
the strain of the Passion Phry summers ; and as it is, they 
look wan and worn before the season is ended. 

It is a thankless return that they have received at the 
hands of some travellers, who have seen in the Passion 
Pkiy little more than a show of mountebanks acting for 
mone3\ The truth is that the individual performers re- 
ceive an incredibly small share of the profits of the Play. 
There is not another village in the world whose members 
would work so hard, and at so great personal sacrifice, 
for the good of their community and their Church. Every 
dollar of the mone3 7 received goes into the hands of a 
committee selected by the people. After all the costs are 
paid, the profits are divided into four portions : one quar- 
ter is set aside to be expended for the Church, for the 
school, and for the poor ; another for the improvement of 
the village, for repairs of highwa3's, public buildings, etc. ; 
a third is divided among the tax-pa3 T ing citizens of the town 
who have incurred the expense of preparing for the Play, 
buying the costumes, etc. The remaining quarter is ap- 
portioned among the players, according to the importance 
of their respective parts ; as there are seven hundred of 
them, it is easy to see that the individual gains cannot 
be veiy great. 

The music of the Pla3 T , as now performed, was written 
in 1814, by Rochus Dedler, an Oberammergau schoolmas- 



PASSION PLAY AT OBERAMMERGAU. 409 

ter. It has for many years been made a sine qua non of 
this position in Oberammergau that the master must be a 
musician, and, if possible, a composer; and Dedler is not 
the only composer who has been content in the humble 
position of schoolmaster in this village of peasants. Every 
da} T the children are drilled in chorus singing and in reci- 
tative ; with masses and other church music they are early 
made familiar. Thus is every avenue of training made to 
minister to the development of material for the perfection 
of the Passion Play. 

Dedler is said to have been a man of almost inspired 
nature. He wrote often by night, and with preternatural 
rapidity. The music of the Passion Play was begun on 
the evening of Trinity Sunda}* ; he called his six children 
together, made them kneel in a circle around him, and 
saying, "Now I begin," ordered them all to devote them- 
selves to earnest prayer for him that he might write music 
worthy of the good themes of the Pla}*. The last notes 
were written on the following Christmas Day, and they 
are indeed worth}' of the story for which the} T are at once 
the expression and the setting. The harmonies are digni- 
fied, simple, and tender, with movements at times much 
resembling some of Mozart's Masses. Many of the chorals 
are full of solemn beauty. A daughter of Dedler's is still 
living in Munich ; and to her the grateful and honest-minded 
Oberammergau people have sent, after each performance 
of the Passion Pla}*, a sum of money in token of their 
sense of indebtedness to her father's work. 

The Passion Pla} T cannot be considered solely as a 
drama ; neither is it to be considered simply as a historical 
panorama, presenting the salient points in the earthly 
career of Jesus called Christ. To consider it in either of 
these ways, or to behold it in the spirit born of either of 
these two views, is to do only partial justice to it. What- 
ever there might have been in the beginning of theatrical 
show and diversion and fantastic conceit about it, has 
been long ago eliminated. Generation after generation 
of devout and holy men have looked upon it more and 
more as a vehicle for the profoundest truths of their 
religion, and have added to it, scene by scene, speech by 
speech, everything which in their esteem could enhance its 
solemnity aud make clear its teaching. However much 



410 NORWAY, DENMARK, AND GERMANY. 

one m&y disagree with its doctrines, reject its assump- 
tions, or question its interpretations, that is no reason for 
overlooking its significance as a tangible and rounded 
presentation of that scheme of the redemption of the 
world in which to-da}^ millions of men and women have 
full faith. It is by no means distinctively a Roman Cath- 
olic presentation of this scheme ; it is Christian. The 
Holy Virgin of the Roman Catholic Church is, in this play, 
from first to last, only the mother of Jesus, — the mother 
whom all lovers and followers of Jesus, wherever they 
place him or her, however the}' define his nature and her 
relations to him, yet hold blessed among the women who 
have given birth to leaders and saviors of men. 

This presentation of the scheme of redemption seeks to 
portray not only the scenes of the life of Jesus on earth, 
but the typical foreshadowing of it in the Old Testament 
narratives, — its prophecy as well as its fulfilment. To this 
end there are given, before each act of the Pla}*, tableaux 
of Old Testament events, supposed to be directly typical, 
and intended to be prophetic, of the scenes in Christ's life 
which are depicted in the act following. These are selected 
with skill, and rendered with marvellous effect. For in- 
stance, a tableau of the plotting of Joseph's brethren to 
sell him into Egypt, is given before the act in which the 
Jewish priests in the full council of the Sanhedrim plot 
the death of Jesus ; a tableau of the miraculous fall of 
manna for the Israelites in the wilderness-, before the act 
in which is given Christ's Last Supper with his Disciples ; 
the sale of Joseph to the Midianites before the bargain of 
Judas with the priests for the betrayal of Jesus ; the death 
of Abel, and Cain's despair, before the act in which Judas, 
driven mad b} T remorse, throws down at the feet of the 
priests the "price of blood," and rushes out to hang him- 
self; Daniel defending himself to Darius, before the act 
in which Jesus is brought into the presence of Pilate for 
trial ; the sacrifice of Isaac, before the scourging of Jesus 
and his crowning with the thorns : these are a few of the 
best and most relevant ones. 

The Play is divided into eighteen acts, and covers the 
time from Christ's entry into Jerusalem at the time of his 
driving the money-changers out of the temple till his ascen- 
sion. The salient points, both historical and graphic, are 



PASSION PLAY AT OBERAMMERGAU. 411 

admirably chosen for a continuous representation. In 
the second act is seen the High Council of the Jewish San- 
hedrim plotting measures for the ruin and death of Jesus. 
This is followed b} T his Departure from Bethany, the Last 
Journey to Jerusalem, the Last Supper, the Final Interview 
between Judas and the Sanhedrim, the Betrayal in the 
Garden of Gethsemane. 

The performance of the Play up to this point consumes 
four hours ; and as there is here a natural break in the 
action, an interval of an hour's rest is taken. It comes 
none too soon, either to actors or spectators, after so long 
a strain of unbroken attention and deep emotion. 

The next act is the bringing of Jesus before the High- 
Priest Annas ; Annas orders him taken before Caiaphas, 
and this is the ninth act of the Pla}\ Then follow : The 
Despair of Judas and his Bitter Reproaches to the Sanhe- 
drim. The Interview between Jesus and Pilate, His Ap- 
pearance before Herod, His Scourging and Crowning with 
Thorns, The Pronouncing of his Death Sentence by Pi- 
late, The Ascent to Golgotha, The Crucifixion and Burial, 
The Resurrection and Ascension. The whole lesson of 
Christ's life, the whole lesson of Christ's death, are thus 
shown, taught, impressed with a vividness which one must 
be callous not to feel. The quality or condition of mind 
which can remain to the end either unmoved or antago- 
nistic is not to be envied. But, setting aside all and every 
consideration of the moral quality of the Play, looking at 
it simply as a dramatic spectacle, as a matter of acting, of 
pictorial effects, it is impossible to deny to it a place among 
the masterly theatrical representations of the world. One's 
natural incredulity as to the possibility of true dramatic 
skill on the part of comparatively unlettered peasants 
melts and disappears at sight of the first act, The Entry 
of Christ into Jerusalem. 

The stage, open to the sk} r , with a background so in- 
geniously arranged as to give a good representation of 
several streets of the city, is crowded in a few moments 
b}' five hundred men and women and children, all waving 
palm branches, singing hosannas, and crowding around the 
central figure of Jesus riding on an ass. The verisimilitude 
of the scene is bewildering. The splendor of the colors is 
dazzling. Watching this crowd of five hundred actors 



412 NORWAY, DENMARK, AND GERMANY. 

closely, one finds not a single man, woman, or little child 
performing his part mechanically or absently. The whole 
five hundred are acting as if each one regarded his part as 
the central and prominent one ; in fact, the}' are so acting 
that it does not seem acting : this is characteristic of the 
acting throughout the play. There is not a moment's 
slighting or tameness anywhere. The most insignificant 
part is rendered as honestly as the most important, and 
with the same abandon and fervor. There are myriads 
of little by-plays and touches, which one hardly recognizes 
in the first seeing of it, the interest is so intense and the 
movement so rapid ; but, seeing it a second time, one is 
almost more impressed by these perfections in minor points 
than by the rendering of the chief parts. The scribes who 
sit quietly writing in the foreground of the Sanhedrim 
Court ; the disciples who have nothing to do but to appear 
to listen while Jesus speaks ; the mone}'-changers picking 
up their coins ; the messengers who come with only a word 
or two to speak ; the soldiers drawing lots among them- 
selves in a group for Jesus' garments, at a moment when 
all attention might be supposed to be concentrated on the 
central figures of the Crucifixion, — every one of these acts 
with an enthusiasm and absorption only to be explained 
by the mingling of a certain element of religious fervor 
with native and long-trained dramatic instinct. 

This dramatic instinct is shown almost as much in the 
tableaux as in the acting. The poses and grouping are 
wonderful, and the power of remaining a long time motion- 
less is certainly a trait which the Oberammergau people 
possess to a well-nigh superhuman extent. The curtain 
remained up, during man}* of these tableaux, five and seven 
minutes ; and there was not a trace of unsteadiness to be 
seen in one of the characters. Even through a powerful 
glass I could not detect so much as the twitching of a muscle. 
This is especially noticeable in the tableau of the Fall of 
Manna in the Wilderness, which is one of the finest of the 
Play. There are in it more than four hundred persons ; one 
hundred and fifty of them are children, some not over three 
years of age. These children are conspicuously grouped 
in the foreground ; man}^ of them are in attitudes which 
must be difficult to keep, — bent on one knee or with out- 
stretched hand or with uplifted face, — but not one of the 



PASSION PLAY AT OBERAMMERGAU. 413 

little creatures stirs head or foot or eye. Neither is there 
to be seen, as the curtain begins to fall, any tremor of 
preparation to move. Motionless as death they stand till 
the curtain shuts even their feet from view. Too much 
praise cannot be bestowed on the fidelity, accuracy, and 
beaut}' of the costumes. The}' are gorgeous in color and 
fabric, and have been studied carefully from the best au- 
thorities extant, and are not the least among the surprises 
which the Play affords to all who go to see it expecting it 
to be on the plane of ordinary theatrical representations. 
The splendor of some of the more crowded scenes is rarely 
equalled : such a combination of severe simplicity of out- 
lines and contours, classic models of drapery, with bril- 
liance 7 of coloring, is not to be seen in airy other play now 
acted. 

The high-water mark of the acting in the Play seems to 
me to be reached, not in the Chris tus, but by Judas. This 
part is played by an old man, Gregory Lechner. He is 
over sixty years of age, and his snow} 7 beard and his hair 
have to be dyed to the re*.- hue which is desired for the 
crafty Judas's face. From the time when, in Simon's 
house, he stands by, grumbling at the waste of the precious 
ointment poured by Mary Magdalene on the feet of Jesus, 
to the last moment of his wretched existence, when he is 
seen wandering in a desolate wilderness, about to take his 
own life in his remorse and despair, Judas' acting is 
superb. Face, attitudes, voice, action, — all are grandly 
true to the character, and marvellously full of life. It 
would be considered splendid acting on an} 7 stage in the 
world. Nothing could surpass its subtlety and fineness of 
conception, or the fire of its rendering. It is a conception 
quite unlike those ordinarily held of the character of Judas ; 
ascribes the betrayal neither to a wilful, malignant treach- 
ery, nor, as is sometimes done, to a secret purpose of 
forcing Jesus to vindicate his claims to divine nature by 
working a miracle of discomfiture to his enemies, but to 
pure, unrestrained avarice, — the deadliest passion which 
can get possession of the human soul. This theory is ten- 
able at every point of Judas' career as recorded in the 
Bible, and affords far broader scope for dramatic delinea- 
tion than any other theory of his character and conduct. 
It is, in fact, the only theory which seems compatible with 



414 NORWAY, DENMARK, AND GERMANY. 

the entire belief in the supernatural nature of Jesus. Ex- 
pecting up to the last minute that supernatural agencies 
would hinder the accomplishment of the Jews' utmost 
malice, he thought to realize the full benefit of the price of 
the betrayal, and yet not seriously imperil either the ulti- 
mate ends or the personal safety of Jesus. The struggle 
between the insatiable demon of avarice in his heart and 
all the nobler impulses restraining it is a struggle which 
is to be seen going on in his thoughts and repeated in his 
face in every scene in which he appears ; and his final de- , 
spair and remorse are but the natural culmination of the 
deed which he did only under the temporary control of a 
passion against which he was all the time struggling, and 
which he himself held in detestation and scorn. The ges- 
ture and look with which he at last flings down the bag 
of silver in the presence of the assembled Sanhedrim, 
exclaiming, — 

" Ye have made me a betrayer ! 
Release again the innocent One ! My 
Hands shall be clean," 

are a triumph of dramatic art never to be forgotten. His 
last words as he wanders distraught in the dark wastes 
among barren trees, are one of the finest monologues of 
the Play. It was written by the priest Daisenberger. 

" Oh, were the Master there ! Oh, could I see 
His face once more ! I 'd cast me at his feet, 
And cling to him, my only saving hope. 
But now he lieth in prison, — is, perhaps, 
Already murdered by his raging foe, — 
Alas, through my own guilt, through my own guilt ! 
I am the outcast villain who hath brought 
My benefactor to these bonds and death ! 
The scum of men ! There is no help for me ! 
For me no hope ! My crime is much too great ! 
The fearful crime no penance can make good ! 
Too late ! Too late ! For he is dead — and I — 
I am his murderer ! 

Thrice unhappy hour 
In which my mother gave me to the world ! 
How long must I drag on this life of shame, 
And bear these tortures in my outcast breast ? 
As one pest-stricken, flee the haunts of men, 
And be despised and shunned by all the world 1 
Not one step farther ! Here, O life accursed, — 
Here will I end thee ! " 



PASSION PLAY AT OBERAMMERGAU. 415 

The character of Christ is, of necessity, far the most 
difficult part in the Play. Looking at it either as a ren- 
dering of the supernatural or a portraying of the human 
Christ, there is apparent at once the well-nigh insurmount- 
able difficulty in the way of actualizing it in any man's 
conception. Only the very profoundest religious fervor 
could carry any man through the effort of embodying it on 
the theory of Christ's divinity ; and no amount of atheistic 
indifference could carry a man through the ghastly mock- 
ery of acting it on any other theory. Joseph Maier, who 
played the part in 1870, 1871, and 1880, is one of the 
best-skilled carvers in the village, and, it is said, has 
never carved anything but figures of Christ. He is a man 
of gentle and religious nature, and is, as any devout Ober 
ammergauer would be, deep^ pervaded by a sense of the 
solemnity of the function he performs in the Play. In the 
main, he acts the part with wonderful dignit}' and pathos. 
The only drawback is a certain* undercurrent of self- 
consciousness which seems ever apparent in him. Perhaps 
this is only one of the limitations inevitably resulting from 
the over-demand which the part, once being accepted and 
regarded as a supernatural one, must perforce make on 
human powers. The dignity and dramatic unit}- of the 
Play are much heightened by the admirable manner in 
which a chorus is introduced, somewhat like the chorus of 
the old Greek pla} T s. It consists of eighteen singers, with 
a leader styled the Choragus. The appearance and 
functions of these Schutzgeister, or guardian angels, as 
the}' are called, has been thus admirably described by a 
writer who has given the best detailed account ever written 
of the Passion Play : — 

" They have dresses of various colors, over which a white 
tunic with gold fringe and a colored mantle are worn. Their 
appearance on the stage is majestic and solemn. They advance 
from the recesses on either side of the proscenium, and take up 
their position across the whole extent of the theatre, forming a 
slightly concave line. After the chorus has assumed its posi- 
tion, the choragus gives out in a dramatic manner the opening 
address or prologue which introduces each act ; the tone is im- 
mediately taken up by the whole chorus, which continues either 
in solo, alternately, or in chorus, until the curtain is raised in 
order to reveal a tableau vivant. At this moment the choragus 
retires a few steps backward, and forms with one half of the 



416 NORWAY, DENMARK, AND GERMANY. 

band a division on the left of the stage, while the other half 
withdraws in like manner to the right. They thus leave the 
centre of the stage completely free, and the spectators have a 
full view of the tableau thus revealed. A few seconds having 
been granted for the contemplation of this picture, made more 
solemn by the musical recitation of the expounders, the curtain 
falls again, and the two divisions of the chorus coming forward 
resume their first position, and present a front to the audience, 
observing the same grace in all their motions as when they 
parted. The chanting still continues, and points out the con- 
nection between the picture which has just vanished and the 
dramatic scene which is forthwith to succeed. The singers then 
make their exit. The task of these Spirit-singers is resumed 
in the few following points : They have to prepare the audience 
for the approaching scenes. While gratifying the ear by deli- 
cious harmonies, they explain and interpret the relation which 
shadow bears to substance, — the connection between the type 
and its fulfilment. And as their name implies, they must be 
ever present as guardian spirits, as heavenly monitors, during 
the entire performance. The addresses of the choragus are all 
written by the Geistlicher Rath Daisenberger. They are writ- 
ten in the form of the ancient strophe and anti-strophe, with 
the difference that while in the Greek theatre they were spoken 
by the different members of the chorus, they are delivered in the 
Passion Play by the choragus alone." 

It is impossible for any description, however accurate 
and minute, to give a just idea of the effects produced by 
this chorus. The handling of it is perhaps the one thing 
which, more than any other, lifts the play to its high plane 
of dignity and beauty. The costumes are brilliant in color, 
and strictly classic in contour, — a full white tunic, edged 
with gold at hem and at throat, and simpry confined at the 
waist by a loose girdle. Over these are worn flowing 
mantles of either pale blue, crimson, dull red, grayish 
purple, green, or scarlet. These mantles or robes are 
held in place carelessly bj T a band of gold across the 
breast. Crowns or tiaras of gold on the head complete 
the dress, which, for simplicity and grace of outline and 
beauty of coloring, could not be surpassed. The rhythmic 
precision with which the singers enter, take place, open 
their lines, and fall back on the right and left, is a marvel, 
until one learns that a diagram of their movement is 
marked out on the floor, and that the mysterious exact- 
ness and uniformity of their positions are simply the result 



PASSION PLAY AT OBERAMMERGAU. 417 

of following each time the constantly marked lines on the 
stage. Their motions are slow and solemn, their expres- 
sions exalted and rapt ; they also are actors in the grand 
scheme of the Pla} T . 

On the morning of the Play the whole village is astir 
before light ; in fact, the village proper can hardly be said 
to have slept at all, for seven hundred out of its twelve 
hundred inhabitants are actors in the pla} T , and are to be 
ready to attend a solemn mass at cla3 T light. 

Before eight o'clock ever}' seat in the theatre is filled. 
There is no confusion, no noise. The proportion of those 
who have come to the play with as solemn a feeling as 
they would have followed the steps of the living Christ in 
Judaea is so large that the contagion of their devout at- 
mosphere spreads even to the most indifferent spectators, 
commanding quiet and serious demeanor. 

The firing of a cannon announces the moment of begin- 
ning. Slow, swelling strains come from the orchestra ; 
the stately chorus enters on the stage ; the music stops ; 
the leader gives a few words of prologue or argument, and 
immediately the chorus breaks into song. 

From this moment to the end, eight long hours, with 
onry one hour's rest at noon, the movement of this play 
is continuous. It is a wonderful instance of endurance 
on the part of the actors ; the stage being entirely un- 
covered, sun and rain alike beat on their unprotected 
heads. The greater part of the auditorium also is un- 
covered, and there have been several instances in which 
the play has been performed in a violent storm of rain, 
thousands of spectators sitting drenched from beginning 
to end of the performance. 

How incomparably the effects are, in sunny weather, 
heightened by this background of mountain and sk}', fine 
distances, and vistas of mountain and meadow, and the 
canop} 7 of heaven overhead, it is impossible to express ; one 
only wonders, on seeing it, that outdoor theatres have not 
become a common summer pleasure for the whole world. 

When birds fly over, they cast fluttering shadows of 
their wings on the front of Pilate's and Caiaphas' homes, 
as naturally as did Judaean sparrows two thousand }~ears 
ago. Even butterflies flitting past cast their tiny shadows 
on the stage ; one bird paused, hovered, as if pondering 

27 



418 NORWAY, DENMARK, AND GERMANY. 

what it all could mean, circled two or three times over the 
heads of the multitude, and then alighted on one of the 
wall-posts and watched for some time. Great banks of 
white cumulus clouds gathered and rested, dissolved and 
floated away, as the morning grew to noondaj", and the 
noonday wore on toward night. This closeness of Nature 
is an accessory of illimitable effect ; the visible presence 
of the sky seems a witness to invisible presences beyond 
it, and a direct bond with them. There must be mam 1 - a 
soul, I am sure, who has felt closer to the world of spirit- 
ual existences, while listening to the music of the Ober- 
ammergau Passion Play, than in any other hour of his life ; 
and who can never, so long as he lives, read without 
emotion the closing words of the venerable Daisenberger's 
little ' l History of Oberamniergau : " — 

" May the strangers who come to this Holy Passion Play be- 
come, by reading this book, more friendly with Ammergau ; and 
may it sometimes, after they have returned to their homes, 
renew in them the memory of this quiet mountain valley." 



University Press : John Wilson & Son, Cambridge. 



Messrs. Roberts Brothers' Publications. 

RAMONA: A Story. 

By HELEN JACKSON (H. H,). 
i2mo Cloth. Price $1.50. 



The Atlantic Monthly says of the author that she is "a MurHlo 
in literature," and that the story " is one of the most artistic 
creations of American literature." Says a lady : "To me it is the 
most distinctive piece of work we have had in this country since 
1 Uncle Tom's Cabin,' and its exquisite fiuish of style is beyond that 
classic." "The book is truly an American novel," says the Boston 
Advertiser. " Ramona is one of the most charming creations of 
modern fiction," says Charles D. Warner. "The romance of the 
Btory is irresistibly fascinating," says The Independent. 

" The best novel written by a woman since George Eliot died, as 
it seems to me, is Mrs. Jackson's ' Ramona.' What action is there ! 
What motion ! How entrainant it is ! It carries us along as if 
mounted on a swift horse's back, from beginning to end, and it is 
only when we return for a second reading that we can appreciate 
the fine handling of the characters, and especially the Spanish 
mother, drawn with a stroke as keen and firm as that which 
portrayed George Eliot's ' Dorothea.' " — T. W. Higginson. 

Unsolicited tribute of a stranger, a lady in Wisconsin : — 

" I beg leave to thank you with an intense heartiness for your 
public espousal of the cause of the Indian. In your ' Century of 
Dishonor ' you showed to the country its own disgrace. In 
'Ramona 'you have dealt most tenderly with the Indians as men 
and women. You have shown that their stoicism is not indiffer- 
ence, that their squalor is not always of their own choosing. You 
have shown the tender grandeur of their love, the endurance of 
their constancy. While, by ' Ramona,' you have made your name 
immortal, you have done something which is far greater. You are 
but one: they are many. You have helped those who cannot help 
themselves. As a novel, 'Ramona' must stand beside 'Romola,' 
both as regards literary excellence and the portrayal of life's deepest, 
most vital, most solemn interests. I think nothing in literature 
since Goldsmith's ' Vicar of Wakefield ' equals your description of 
the flight of Ramona and Alessandro. Such delicate pathos and 
tender joy, such pure conception of life's realities, and such loftiness 
of self-abnegating love ! How much richer and happier the world 
is with ' Ramona ' in it ! " 

♦ 

Sold by all booksellers. Mailed, post-paid, by the publisher s t 

ROBERTS BROTHERS, Boston 



Messrs. Roberts Brothers' Publications. 

Z E P H. 

A POSTHUMOUS STORY. 

By HELEN JACKSON (H. H). 
One volume. i6mo. Cloth. Price, $1.25. 



u The story is complete in spite of the fact that a few chapters remained still 
to be written when the writer succumbed to disease. Begun and mainly com- 
pleted at Los Angeles last year, the manuscript had been put by to be completed 
when returning health should have made continuous labor possible. But health 
never returned ; the disease steadily deepened its hold, and a few days before her 
death, foreseeing that the end was near, Mrs. Jackson sent the manuscript to 
her publisher, with a brief note, enclosing a short outline of the chapters which 
remained unwritten. . . . The real lesson of the book lies in Zeph's unconquer- 
able affection for his worthless wife, and in the beautiful illustration of the divine 
trait of forgiveness which he constantly manifested toward her. As a portraiture 
of a character moulded and guided by this sentiment, ' Zeph ' will take its place 
with the best of Mrs. Jackson's work ; a beautiful plea for love and charity and 
long-suffering, patience and forgiveness, coming from one whose hand now rests 
from this and all kindred labors." — New York Christian Utiion. 

"Although the beautiful and pathetic story of Zeph ' was never quite com- 
pleted, the dying author indicated what remained to be told in the few unwritten 
chapters, and it comes to us, therefore, not as a curious fragment, but as an all 
but finished work. There is something most tender and sad in the supreme artis- 
tic conscientiousness of one who could give such an illustration of fidelity and so 
emphasize the nobility of labor from her death-bed. These things that bring 
back the gracious spirit from whose loss the heart of the reading world is still 
smarting, would lend pathos and interest to ' Zeph ' even if they did not exist in 
the story itself. The creation of 'Zeph' is a fitting close to a life of splendid 
literary activity, and it will be enjoyed by those who believe in the novel as, first 
of all, a work of art, which can be made in proper hands a tremendous force 
for truth and justice, and real instead of formal righteousness." — New York 
Commercial A dvertiser. 

" As people grow older they see more and more clearly that love — the love 
between man and woman — is the great power that shapes character, and makes 
life a blessing, a burden, or a curse. More and more deeply did Mrs. Jackson 
feel the omnipotence of perfect, patient love, the only power that is sure of final 
victor}', and to show this did she tell the story of Zeph. Before the story was 
finished, Mrs. Jackson became too ill to work any more ; but the life of Zeph was 
very near her heart ; she wanted to make it known, to impress the lesson, that 
through knowledge of a great forgiving human love even the saddest and most 
sinful creature may come to a faith in a great forgiving divine love, in a God as 
good as she has known a man to be, and so in her last hours Mrs. Jackson made 
a brief outline of the plot for the end of the story. As her latest work, this has 
a special and pathetic interest." — Boston Daily Advertiser. 



Sold by all Booksellers. Mailed, post-paid, by the Pub- 
liskersy 

ROBERTS BROTHERS, Boston. 



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